INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightWayne County Sheriff's OfficeImage caption
The accused was sitting next to his wife when he allegedly
assaulted someone sitting next to him
A US court has sentenced an Indian man to nine years in jail for sexually assaulting a
woman who sat next to him on a US flight in January
Prabhu Ramamoorthy, 34, was sitting between his wife and the victim, who said she was asleep at the time.The woman said she had woken up to
find her shirt and trousers unbuttoned and his hand in her trousers.Ramamoorthy will be deported back to India after he serves his sentence,
a federal court in Detroit said.The prosecution had originally sought a 11-year jail term
But the US District Judge Terrence Berg concluded that nine years was sufficient for what he described as "an extremely serious offence,"
according to the Detroit Free Press
When the accusations against Ramamoorthy surfaced, he had denied them, telling police he could not have committed the crime because he was
Ramamoorthy was held without bail after appearing in a federal court in Michigan after prosecutors argued there was a risk he could
abscond.Prosecutors told the Washington Post that he had been charged with aggravated sexual abuse.The woman reported the incident to crew
shortly before the plane, belonging to Spirit Airlines, landed
Ramamoorthy's wife alleged that the woman had been sleeping on her husband's knees.She also said the couple had requested a flight
attendant to seat the woman elsewhere.But flight attendants told investigators that only the alleged victim had asked for her seat to be
changed.They said she was crying when she came to them and that the buttons on her shirt and trousers were undone
They had then assigned her a different seat at the back of the plane.
