Priest gets prison for groping seatmate

A woman sleeping on a long flight awoke to find the Valyermo man assaulting her.

A Roman Catholic priest was sentenced to six months in federal prison and must register as a sex offender for groping a woman on a crosscountry f light while she was sleeping, authorities said Monday.

Marcelo De Jesumaria, 46, of Valyermo, was also sentenced to six months’ home confinement in connection with the incident aboard a US Airways f light from Philadelphia to Los Angeles on Aug. 17, 2014.

According to a statement from the U. S. attorney’s off ice, De Jesumaria told a f light attendant he wanted to sit next to his “wife,” indicating a woman in the back row of the plane. The woman was in an aisle seat and De Jesumaria took the middle. Another man was sitting in the window seat, officials said.

The woman fell asleep during the long f light, but woke up to f ind De Jesumaria’s hand high on her left thigh. He then wrapped his arm around her and grabbed her breast, prosecutors said. When he relaxed his grip, the woman got up and told a f light at- tendant what had happened.

The f light crew moved De Jesumaria to the front of the plane and the pilot alerted law enforcement, who took Jesumaria into custody once the f light landed. He told FBI agents that he liked “cozy f lights” with women, prosecutors said.

De Jesumaria reportedly testified that he thought what he did was consensual because she didn’t stop him and he considered her silence — she was actually asleep — as “coyness,” federal officials said.

The woman told the judge at his sentencing Monday that she feels “fear, frustration and anxiety” since the attack. The effects are particularly acute because she frequently f lies as part of her job, prosecutors said.