A California man accused of groping two women on a JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston is using the popular sleep drug Ambien as his excuse for the alleged incident. He also claimed he wasn’t attracted to the women so he couldn’t possibly have groped them.
The 42-year-old Jairaj Singh Dhillon stands accused of inappropriately touching a woman who was with her infant child on the flight. According to many reports, including the USA Today, approximately 30 minutes into the flight Dhillon began touching the woman’s thigh and groin area while she was taking care of her child. The child was in a car seat in the window next to the woman who was seated in the middle seat of the row.
After the incident occurred, she called out for help to her husband who was also on the flight but seated elsewhere.
Later, a second victim indicated she’d been grabbed by Dhillon when he allegedly used both hands to grab her groin and buttocks while she was standing in the aisle. The woman was seated in an aisle seat adjacent to Dhillon.
Dhillon was moved to a different portion of the plane for the duration of the flight and was arrested upon landing in Boston’s Logan Airport. He later told authorities that he has no recollection of the events indicating he’d taken the popular sleeping drug Ambien before the flight and that he wouldn’t have groped the women because he was not physically attracted to the two women.
The drug Ambien is well known to result in some unusual experiences if taken while flying including the unusual phenomenon of sleepwalking on the plane. CNN published an article that shares several of these stories and many frequent travelers can share a story or two of flying and Ambien mixing poorly.
Dhillon faces up to 3 years in prison for the offenses and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
1 comment
Ah, he’s using the old “I’m a creepy groping predator but it’s the fault of the ambien for making my inner self come out” defense.