Sexual assault on Spirit flight lands man in prison for 9 years

[Floyd R. Turbo]

With his wife crying in the courtroom, a Rochester Hills, Michigan, man was sentenced to nine years in prison Thursday 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 one another 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.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2018/12/14/prabhu-ramamoorthy-detroit-spirit-airlines/2312652002/

[malaise]

1. Good

I heard yesterday that his wife was sitting next to him on the flight. The contempt for women is palpable. Throw away the keys.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

2. According to the article his wife was staring at the victim after she (victim) woke up!

[malaise]

4. She never stopped her vile husband

Fuck her too.

[apcalc]

5. He must be a piece of work to live with.

Let the wife count her blessings to be removed from him for nine years.

[malaise]

7. Indeed

My sub-continental neighbor brought her toddler son over one afternoon. I was teaching her how to make chocolate oatmeal cookies. He was a pretty good - almost three year old boy. When the cookies were in the oven he started acting up (normal at that age). She sat down and sat him down. He proceeded to get up and attempt to choke her. I must have turned white as a sheet as I went over and moved him and told him if he tried it again I would slap him.

I just knew that he learned that from his father. Shortly after she went home for a visit and never returned. She was an educated woman and I think my reaction woke her up. He is still a few places down.
Let me be clear - violence against women is present in all cultures but contempt for women is more overt in some cultures.

[Greybnk48]

3. If he was a white skinned, frat boy, he's be home now watching t.v.

He could have raped and sodomized the woman to a state of unconsciousness and left her for dead. Funny how that works here in the USA.

[malaise]

6. Possibly

But they should all be in prison. I want to know why his wife didn't stop him.

[TrogL]

9. This is standard operating procedure in Indian culture

Google "Eve teasing".

[malaise]

10. Didn't know that

Thanks

[Tipperary]

13. Yuck.

[Ms. Toad]

12. No woman - victim or wife - is responsible for the offender's behavior. n/t

[dsc]

14. on a plane full of people

she watched him assault a woman and said nothing that is aiding and abetting.

[Ms. Toad]

15. No woman - victim or wife - is responsible for the offender's behavior.

Aiding and abetting (the precise crime varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction) requires that she act with the actual desire to aid or encourage the commission of a crime. Merely sitting and remaining silent, without more, does not rise to that level of mens rea.

Under tort law - if she had a close relationship with the woman in a superior role (parent child, guard-prisoner, boss-employee) she would likely have had a duty to intervene. But it is the relationship with the victim, not the offender that might create a legal obligation. The only potential relationship that would have imposed a duty on her would have been as a minor child - IF he had acted in this manner previously, she was aware of his actions, and took no steps to prevent it in the future.

He is a grown man, and responsible for his own actions.

As for her, certainly I would have hoped that she would intevene. BUT - a man who would do this to a total stranger, in public, likely treats his wife far worse behind closed doors. Intervening might well have been dangerous to her own safety.

[dsc]

16. She was on a plane full of people

This isn't behind closed doors where she could have been assaulted herself. She is every bit as morally reprehensible as he was.

[Ms. Toad]

17. I find it hard to believe I'm reading this on DU.

Do you really think the risk associated with disclosing what he is doing ends when the plane lands?

Try spending some time in a battered women's shelter - or even just going taking souch training.

Women who have a history of being abused typically know, from direct experience, that disclosure makes things worse; that punishment is generally brief (or non-existent) and that the anger at the betrayal is worse when the perpetrater is released from custody (if he is even taken into custody).

I don't know for a fact that he is abusing her - but it is a pretty safe assumption, since he felt confident enough that she would not disclose his behavior to engage in it in front of her.

Women, regardless of their relationship to a particular man, are not responsible for controlling their behavior.

[CreekDog]

18. Your post is an accusation of a felony upon an uninvolved person

that's just bullshit.

aiding and abetting is a crime and it's for people who drive getaway cars or help hide evidence of a crime and/or hide fugitives from law enforcement.

and you're accusing someone who was not involved of aiding and abetting.

your anti choice posts are bad enough and you've been posting those for years. add this post and it seems being anti woman is really the issue here. yes, your posts are anti-woman.

your post is detestable and should be deleted or removed.

[drmeow]

8. I was thinking the same thing

or, rather, I was wishing that white sexual predators were held to the same standards

[keithbvadu2]

11. Or on the Supreme Court

(from the Kavanaugh GOP approvals)