Indian man sentenced to nine years after sexually assaulting female passenger

Victim woke up to her clothes unbuttoned, his hand in her trousers

An Indian man was sentenced to nine years in jail by a US court after being charged with aggravated sexual assault of a woman who was seated next to him on a US flight, BBC News reported.



Prabhu Ramamoorthy, 34, was sitting between his wife and another woman. When the other woman fell asleep he unbuttoned her clothes and sexually assaulted her. She woke up to find her shirt and trousers unbuttoned and his hand in her trousers. The woman reported the incident to the authorities shortly before the plane landed.

The prosecution had initially sought an 11-year jail term but the US District Judge sentenced the man to 9 years in jail. When the accusations against the man were brought up, he had denied them saying that he could not have assaulted the woman because he was also asleep.



However, the man’s wife alleged that the woman had been sleeping on her husband’s knees and they had requested the flight attendant to change her seat. The flight attendants denied these allegations and confirmed instead that only the alleged victim had asked for her seat to be changed.

The attendants also said that she had been crying when she came to them and the buttons on her shirt and trousers had been undone and they assigned her another seat at the back of the plane.

This story originally appeared on BBC News.