CALIFORNIA
ABC News
LOS ANGELES — Aug 24, 2015
By AMANDA LEE MYERS Associated Press
A California-based Catholic priest was sentenced Monday to six months in prison followed by six months of home confinement for groping a sleeping woman seated next to him on an airliner.
Marcelo de Jesumaria, 46, was sentenced in federal court in Los Angeles. A jury found him guilty in May of abusive sexual contact.
Jesumaria touched a sleeping woman’s buttocks, breast and groin during a nighttime flight last August from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, according to prosecutors.
The woman, a model, says she woke up as Jesumaria was touching her and reported the abuse to flight attendants and later an FBI agent. Jesumaria told the agent that he enjoys “cozy flights” with women and purposefully changed his seat to be next to the woman, but he initially denied touching her breast, according to prosecutors.
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