An Indian man 58 years old has been charged with sexually touching a woman who is sitting next to him on a flight from Los Angeles to New Jersey.
Veerabhadrarao Kunam is a resident of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. He is charged under the molestation case.
On Tuesday, The accused appeared before Joseph Dickson who is US Magistrate Judge in Newark federal court. He was released on a US $ 50,000 secured bond.
On 30th July, Kunam was arrested when his flight arrived at Newark. He was taken into federal custody by the FBI.
According to the victim woman that Kunam was seated next to the woman who occupied a middle seat on a flight from Los Angeles to Newark.
The woman was sleeping when the plane was in the air. She woke up and find that Kunam sexually touching her.
After noticing that he was sexually touching her, the victim alerted her male companion who gave his seats to her and faced Kunam.
The accused told the travel companion of victim that he wanted everyone to forget about the incident and offered to buy a drink for any trouble he may have caused.
But the travel companion rejected the offer of Kunam and called a flight crew member about the incident.
Then a flight crew member moved Kunam to another seat and instructed him not to return to his previous seat.
He told the flight crew member that he would not touch the victim woman again.
The airline spokesperson said in a statement that the flight crew members are trained for such situations to handle them and the crew member immediately moved kunam to another seat, monitored him to ensure he did not move from his seat and then crew member called law enforcement. The law enforcement were waiting for the aircraft when it arrived at the New Jersey airport.
