A federal choose sentenced a California man Thursday to at least one yr of probation after prosecutors stated he touched two girls on a redeye flight from Los Angeles to Boston, courtroom data present.
Prosecutors stated Jairaj Singh Dhillon, 43, of Modesto, Calif., touched a lady on her thigh about half-hour right into a May 2022 flight as she was tending to her toddler baby subsequent to her within the window seat. He then “reached his hand deeper into her groin area,” courtroom paperwork stated.
“When the first victim swatted his hand away and called for help, the female passenger across the aisle — who was sitting next to the first victim’s husband — stood up in the aisle to allow the first victim’s husband out, only to be groped in the groin and buttocks by Dhillon,” federal prosecutors in Boston wrote in courtroom paperwork.
But Dhillon’s public defender stated his offenses have been a “complete aberration in a life otherwise defined by respect and concerns for others.” Dhillon constructed a life within the United States over 22 years after coming from India as a non secular asylee, the general public defender stated.
Dhillon’s lawyer stated the “unusual” and “unlikely to recur” circumstances of the case pointed to the necessity for a lesser sentence.
Lawyers stated Dhillon took sleeping medicine earlier than getting on the flight.
“Dhillon was observed to have been ‘act[ing] odd,’ and he was described by one of the victim’s husbands as ‘seem[ing] off’ and ‘glazed and confused.’ One of the victims described Mr. Dhillon as ‘not all there,’” the general public defender wrote in a sentencing doc. “… He did not remember inappropriately touching either victim and, as he told law enforcement, such conduct would be wrong and unacceptable.”
Prosecutors stated Dhillon “violated” the feminine victims by groping them. He pled responsible to a two-count misdemeanor in March charging him with assault onboard an plane.
“Worse, because of the circumstances, these female victims were forced to remain in a confined space with their assailant for hours until their plane landed in Boston,” prosecutors wrote in courtroom paperwork. “Regardless of any drugs the defendant may have taken, there is no diminishing what happened to the female victims who were subjected to Dhillon’s physical assault.”
But prosecutors acknowledge the incident was “aberrant” within the broader context of Dhillon’s life.
“The government submits that Dhillon’s lack of criminal history and prompt acceptance of responsibility suggest that a sentence of probation with a period of home confinement is sufficient to meet the goals of sentencing,” they stated.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”