A Southern California man who groped a sleeping woman on a flight to Los Angeles was sentenced to almost two years in prison Thursday, federal prosecutors said.
Mohammad Jawad Ansari, 50, was found guilty by a jury in May of one count of abusive sexual contact, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said in a statement.
Ansari was sentenced to 21 months and ordered to pay $1,600 in restitution and a $33,750 fine, according to court records.
He placed his hand on the knee and then the inner thigh of a passenger who was sleeping in the seat next to him on a flight from Cleveland to Los Angeles on Feb. 17, 2020, the office said.
The woman woke up, pushed away Ansari’s hand and got up and told a flight attendant.
Prosecutors called it “outrageous and sexually predatory conduct” that warranted prison time. They asked for a two-year sentence in a court filing.
The woman did not know Ansari and the abusive contact happened over the course of up to an hour, prosecutors said.
Ansari’s attorney, Caleb E Mason, said that they plan to appeal his conviction.
Mason argued in a court filing that he has been a law-abiding, upstanding person his whole life and the conduct of which he was convicted is aberrant and not typical of him.
Read the full article here