A JetBlue Airlines passenger was charged in federal court today on allegations that he assaulted a flight attendant by touching her genitals and buttocks while she was collecting trash.
Robert Thomas Kernan, a 54-year-old Denver resident, was arrested Sunday after the Saturday night flight arrived at Denver International Airport from Boston.
After Kernan boarded the plane, he asked the flight attendant for a Budweiser Light beer, according to an arrest affidavit filed in U.S. District Court.
Once beverage service began, he purchased the beer. He asked for a second beer but did not have enough cash to buy it, the court record says.
The flight attendant was doing a final walk-through in the cabin collecting trash when Kernan reached between her legs and touched her genitals through her slacks and then dragged his hands across her buttocks, the affidavit says.
“She yelled at Kernan that his actions were inappropriate, she was having security contacted to have him arrested and that he was disgusting,” the affidavit says. “Kernan looked away and said two times, ‘It was just a misunderstanding.’ ”
Other passengers reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Kernan appeared intoxicated throughout the flight, the report says.
A woman who Kernan was sitting next to told the FBI that she moved her 3-year-old son to sit between her and Kernan in an effort to get away from him.
“Kernan then reached over her sleeping son and grabbed her right arm three times,” the affidavit says. “Each time, (the woman) told Kernan to stop touching her.”
Yet another passenger on board saw Kernan looking at his 17-year-old daughter’s backside as she retrieved her jacket from an overhead bin, the FBI reported.
Kernan is the third passenger arrested at DIA in the last two months accused of bad behavior on an airplane.
In July, the FBI arrested Tamera Jo Freeman, 38, of San Francisco after passengers reported that she repeatedly struck her children, ages 2 and 4, while drunk on a Frontier Airlines flight.
Andy Lee Osuna, 29, a Southwest Airlines passenger, was arrested after his flight on Aug. 10 from Chicago to Las Vegas was diverted to Denver because he tried to choke a passenger, made lewd comments and yelled at the plane’s crew, according to court records.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-954-1219 or at fcardona@denverpost.com.
