Brooklyn man who confessed to assaulting sleeping woman on transatlantic flight will not be jailed
What the hell does it take to get locked up for a sexual assault in New York? 36-year-old man admits to sexually assaulting sleeping 25-year-old woman on airliner – and calls it ‘misjudgment’ – but soft justice judge REFUSES to jail him
- Brooklyn man who confessed to sexually assaulting sleeping woman on transatlantic flight will not be jailed
- Daniel Katz, 36, will only receive one year probation for his actions after being convicted by a federal jury in June 2021
- Prosecutors said Katz assaulted a “vulnerable young woman” by putting his hands down her pants and touching her while she was unconscious.
- However, Clinton-appointed Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block denied the prosecutors’ jail request.
- Block once used the idea of ’collateral consequences’ to avoid handing out prison sentences
A Brooklyn man who admitted to sexually assaulting a sleeping 25-year-old woman on a transatlantic flight will receive no jail time, a federal judge saying being registered as a sex offender ‘would impact his ability to find a job and to travel.
Daniel Katz, 36, will receive just one year of probation for his actions after being found guilty by a federal jury in June 2021 of two counts charging him with abusive sexual touching and assault.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Katz assaulted a “vulnerable young woman sleeping in a dark airplane cabin” by putting his hands in her pants and touching her while she was unconscious.
Katz will be placed under house arrest for three months, must perform 75 hours of community service and be placed on the sex offender registry, in addition to a year of probation.
However, Clinton-appointed Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block denied prosecutors’ jail request, believing the sentencing was sufficient punishment.
Clinton-appointed Brooklyn federal judge Frederic Block denied prosecutors’ jail request, saying sentencing was punishment enough
“It will impact his ability to find employment and travel. [The] sex offender registry would cause enormous collateral damage.
Block has used the idea of “collateral consequences” before in sentencing. In 2016, a man convicted of attempting to import, sell and possess cocaine was only sentenced to a year’s probation and claimed the “collateral consequences” faced by convicted felons are punishment enough, according to the New York Times.
He said at the time that jail time had “no useful function other than to further punish defendants after they have served their court-imposed sentences”.
The incident happened on Etihad Airways Flight 103 on February 24, 2018 from Abu Dhabi to JFK Airport in New York.
Katz made a creeping statement ahead of his sentencing on Friday, according to Yahoo News.
Brooklyn man who admitted to sexually assaulting sleeping woman on transatlantic flight will receive no jail time, federal judge says just be registered as sex offender
He called the sexual abuse of an unconscious woman a ‘misjudgment’ and added: ‘I would give anything to go back in time. Going forward, I will always seek verbal consent.
His victim said she was still living with the trauma four years later in a statement before Katz’s sentencing.
She said: ‘It’s traumatic – stuck in a flight for what felt like days with my attacker. I can’t count the number of panic attacks or blackouts I’ve had because of it. It always makes me feel so small.
The pre-written statement – which the victim called reading aloud “the hardest thing I’ve ever done” – continues: “It’s shocking in 2022, no matter how badly women have fought for rights, that it has to be argued in court whether it’s right or wrong. I speak to the system that has the power to change things, so that another young woman does not hide her abuse.
Katz does not appear to have been placed on the sex offender registry as of this writing.
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