SoCal Priest Sentenced to Prison for Sexually Assaulting Woman Aboard Plane

CALIFORNIA
NBC Los Angeles

By Joel Grover and Matthew Glasser

A Southern California Catholic priest was sentenced to federal prison Monday for sexually assaulting a female passenger aboard a US Airways flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

Father Marcelo De Jesumaria, 46, formerly of Lake Arrowhead, was sentenced in federal court to six months in prison and six months of home detention for the crime of “abusive sexual contact” on the August 2014 flight. He was convicted in May of this year.

In February 2014, the NBC4 I-Team revealed that there had been a spike in the number of sexual assaults aboard airplanes in the last year. Most of the crimes took place on overnight flights while passengers were asleep.

In this recent case, the US Attorney’s Office said Father De Jesumaria touched a woman’s breast, inner thigh, and groin on the red-eye flight to LA.

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