WTF??? This happened to me too, with a man of Indian appearance. I was too scared to do anything but bat his hand away when I woke up, though. Disgusting. I'm glad this jerk got caught.

What I eagerly wanted to know is, 1) what exactly did he do to her? 2) was she hot? 3) was she wearing something provocative that lead to this?

So...does Continental charge extra for copping a feel too?

"Advani is charged with abusive sexual contact. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine, said Zach Intrater, an assistant U.S. attorney." (nj.com)

Three years in prison and $250,000 fine for "abusive sexual contact?" Damn. If Advani had recklessly mowed down and killed this woman with his car, he'd probably be punished a heck of lot less. Does the punishment fit the crime?

What I was trying to say was that crazy, irresponsible drivers who kill people deserve to be severely punished. Sometimes our laws seem to be way out of sync.

damn, she must've been sleeping pretty hard to not wake up on her own...I can't imagine being able to do that on a plane, even on such a long flight.

One or two Tylenol PM and G&T usually knock me out for a good long while when I travel. Maybe I should reconsider that though...

At least, having revealed that on Gothamist, be sure never to also reveal any of your travel itineraries.

They kicked her seat to wake her up? oh how kind, should we be grateful they did anything at all, would it have been so hard to stand up and tell the MoFo in a loud voice, to knock it the f*ck off, while alerting the woman & crew at the same time instead of kicking her seat and hoping she notices.

They should have just cut right to the point and kicked him into the asile.

Hey at least they did *something*.

Apparently some people witnessed that woman in queens being raped and didn't do crap.

Yeah, don't get me started on that one, i still can't fathom seeing something like that happening, and doing NOTHING, that's just sick, i think there should be charges/fines for people who see something that's clearly F'ed up, going on and do nothing.

It's group psychology 101. Everyone in the crowd believes that if other people are watching a crime, someone must have either called the cops or tried to help - otherwise someone would be intervening. Part of it is "I don't want to get involed", but it's just herd mentality when even just a few people are watching a horrific event. Granted, this is a gross over-simplification for the sake of a internet comment.

Remember the man who was stabbed in queens and bled to death on the sidewalk? Even though people walked right by him, no one did anything.

http://gothamist.com/2010/04/24/people_ignored_homeless_man_dying_o.php

I agree with your sentiment - I'd like to think I'd be the person to do the right thing, but you never know how you'll react until you're placed in that situation.

That example (the homeless guy in Queens) is completely different, because no one saw anything happen to him. He looked like a homeless guy passed out on the sidewalk.

After some time, a passerby did check on him and lift up his head, seeing he was bleeding. FDNY showed up ten minutes later, which makes it seem likely that the one person in that case who did know that there was a problem called 911 immediately.

Anyway, in the situation on the plane I don't know if there's enough information to say that the other people should have taken more direct action. Perhaps they weren't sure whether the man and the woman seated together knew each other. By quietly waking her, they would find out whether she objected to this guy having his hands on her. But certainly plenty of people travelling together place hands other one another's blankets.

It is a ironic that you bring up the homeless guy who died on the street when talking about a lack of intervention. Since the guy was stabbed while intervening in another conflict.

Bottom line is that getting involved in other people's trouble is a brave, but dangerous thing to do. People are always quick to judge people who don't want to get involved, and quick to forget when people get hurt when they do.