A 22-year-old woman woke up to find a man sexually assaulting her while she slept aboard a Spirit Airlines flight to Detroit.
The man sitting next to her was apprehended and charged with aggravated sexual abuse by federal authorities following the flight Wednesday.
The woman was sitting in the window seat next to the man, Prabhu Ramamoorthy. She was awoken to find her shirt and pants unbuttoned with Ramamoorthy digitally penetrating her, according to The Detroit News.
Ramamoorthy stopped when he saw that the woman was awake. The woman notified a flight attendant.
Ramamoorthy was then detained by the Wayne County Airport Authority. He later told authorities that he had fallen into a deep sleep and did not assault the woman.
But then he admitted to FBI officials that he “might have” unclasped the bra of the woman sleeping next to him, grabbed her breast and unzipped her pants, according to the publication.
According to the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, a union for flight attendants, one out of five flight attendants surveyed from a group of 2,000 last year said they had received a report of a passenger being sexually assaulted.
Spirit Airline officials did not respond to requests for comment.
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