A 16-year-old girl was asleep, sitting in a window seat on a New Jersey-bound United Airlines plane, when a stranger’s hand on her thigh awakened her, according to a federal complaint.
The man sitting next to her quickly removed his hand, according to the federal complaint, and the teenager went back to sleep. Then, she woke up again and this time, the man was groping her, the complaint says.
After he stopped, the complaint says, the teen told a United flight attendant what happened and asked to be moved to another seat.
Once the flight from Seattle landed at Newark Liberty International Airport, the girl called her parents following which the man left the airport, Johnny McCray, an attorney for the girl’s family, told The Washington Post.
Her family questioned the airlines as to why it allowed the man to leave the plane and the airport after he’d been accused of a crime. The FBI, which has jurisdiction over incidents during air travel, was contacted to take over the investigation. Probes were later able to get a flight manifest to determine the man. The teen picked a man named Vijakumar Krishnappa out of a photo lineup.
