We're sorry, ladies, if you never doze off on a flight again after this, but ...
The FBI arrested a man Friday afternoon for allegedly molesting a sleeping female passenger on an American Airlines flight from Miami to D.C.
Saurabh Agarwal, 39, was named in a felony complaint and charged with engaging in abusive sexual contact with the victim, identified by her initials, “R.C.L.”
Agarwal, who was born in India and lives in Sterling, Va., is jailed in advance of a detention hearing this afternoon in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
FBI Agent David Wiegand reported that the victim was seated next to Agarwal, and fell asleep only to wake up and find Agarwal “hugging her body."
With "his hand inside her bra, fondling her breasts,” no less.
“Because of fear,” however, the woman “pretended to be asleep" even as the accused kept "squeezing her body tighter” and “squeezed her nipple.”
The woman, who was in the window seat, told federal investigators that she “did not show that she was awake due to being so scared of” Agarwal.
When a flight attendant approached with a beverage cart, Agarwal “moved off the victim,” only to return to touching her just after the car rolled by.
Agarwal also “pressed his legs up against [R.C.L.]’s legs.”
The woman then said she “needed to use the restroom, left her seat, and went to the back of the plane," where she told the crew what was going on.
A second woman, who was in the aisle seat next to Agarwal, told agents she observed him “hugging, smelling her, and putting his hand in her shirt.”
The woman “assumed defendant and R.C.L. were traveling together,” adding that even if that were true, she was “irritated by the defendant’s behavior.”
In any case, Agarwal was detained en route to Reagan Airport by federal air marshals assigned to the flight and faces a maximum of two years in prison.
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