Sexual assault on Las Vegas flight lands man nine-year prison term

DETROIT — With his wife crying in the courtroom, a man from Rochester Hills, Mich., was sentenced to nine years in prison for sexually assaulting a sleeping woman on an airplane, sticking his hands down her pants and penetrating her genitalia while his wife sat next to him.

As prosecutors put it, Prabhu Ramamoorthy “committed one of the most brazen airplane sexual assaults ever prosecuted in this district” when he knowingly took advantage of a sleeping, intoxicated woman who could not fight back.

The 35-year-old defendant, who chose not to speak at his sentencing hearing or address the victim, will be deported to India when he gets out of prison. He will never be allowed back into the United States.

Shackled and handcuffed, Ramamoorthy held his head low and cried as he left the courtroom while his wife looked his way. The husband and wife uttered some words to each other as the victim looked on from the other side of the courtroom, where she sat quietly with a comfort dog.

The victim also chose not to speak at sentencing.

“He has shown no remorse or concern for the victim,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Jawad told the judge, noting that other defendants accused of similar crimes have expressed some sort of remorse at sentencing.

‘Extremely serious’

U.S. District Judge Terrence Berg said he was “concerned” that the defendant offered no expression of remorse but that he wouldn’t hold it against him, noting defendants have a right to remain silent and can’t be forced into saying anything.

The prosecution had asked for a 130-month sentence. Berg concluded that nine years was a fitting punishment for what he described as “an extremely serious offense.”

According to court records, the 22-year-old victim was sleeping in the seat next to Ramamoorthy on a nighttime Spirit Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Detroit in January when she was jolted awake by the feeling of his fingers in her vagina. Her shirt and pants were unbuttoned.

“When he realized (the victim) was awake, the defendant turned and pretended to sleep on his wife’s shoulder while his wife stared at (the victim),” Jawad wrote in a sentencing memo.

The victim sat paralyzed in disbelief. She then texted her boyfriend.

“Oh my god. I just woke up and the guy next to me had his hands down my pants and in my vagina. Who do I call. Do I tell a flight attendant. Oh my god I’m gonna cry,” read the texts, which were shown to the jury at trial. She also texted that a woman with the man “keeps looking at me.”

The victim got up and alerted flight attendants about what happened. They moved her to the back galley and eventually to a different seat. Police officers met the plane when it landed.

Ramamoorthy told investigators that he was sleeping, that the victim was sleeping on him and that he wasn’t sure where he kept his hand. He denied touching her intentionally.

Defendant ‘will suffer’

Later, Ramamoorthy admitted to FBI agents that he put his fingers in the victim’s pants and “might” have unhooked her bra.

In pleading for leniency, Ramamoorthy’s lawyer, James Amberg, argued that his client, a college-educated computer specialist who moved to the U.S. in 2015, lived a clean and productive life before the incident. He had no criminal record in the U.S. or India.

Amberg also said his client already had been assaulted in jail since his arrest months ago and that he faces a lifetime of shunning when he returns to India.

“He will suffer long after this sentence is done,” Amberg said.