Catholic priest sentenced to jail for groping woman on U.S. flight

A Catholic priest convicted of groping a woman on a U.S. airline flight was sentenced to six months in federal prison on Monday after the victim testified that she was still traumatized by the ordeal, prosecutors said.

Marcelo De Jesumaria, 46, was also sentenced to six months of home confinement by a federal judge who ordered him to register as a sex offender, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.

Prosecutors say that the incident took place on a US Airways flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles on Aug. 17, 2014 when De Jesumaria moved from his assigned seat to the last row of the aircraft, telling a flight attendant he wanted to "sit next to his wife."

The victim, who had been sleeping, told authorities that she awoke to find De Jesumaria touching the top of her leg and then wrap his arm around her body to grab her breast.
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De Jesumaria, formerly of the Diocese of San Bernardino, testified that he considered his touching of the victim consensual because she did not reject them and interpreted her silence, because she was asleep, as "coyness."

Catholic priest sentenced to jail for groping woman on U.S. flight