Doctor exposed himself, masturbated on flight while sitting next to teen, feds say
While on a Hawaiian Airlines flight to Boston, a 14-year-old girl noticed the man sitting next to her was exposed and masturbating, federal prosecutors said.
The teenager, “desperate” to get away from him, moved to an empty seat before telling her family what happened after she arrived in Boston with her grandparents, who were seated across the aisle and were asleep on the May 27, 2022 flight, according to court documents.
The man, Sudipta Mohanty, 33, a Boston internal medicine and primary care doctor, was arrested Aug. 10 on a charge of lewd, indecent and obscene acts while in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the U.S., the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced in a news release.
“What Dr. Mohanty is accused of doing in front of a fourteen-year-old girl is reprehensible,” Christopher DiMenna, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division, said in a statement.
McClatchy News contacted Sandra Gant, a federal defender representing Mohanty, for comment Aug. 11 and didn’t receive an immediate response.
Mohanty works at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital.
A spokesperson for the medical center told McClatchy News in a statement Aug. 11 that Mohanty “is on leave and not currently practicing at BIDMC.”
“We are unable to comment further on personnel matters,” the spokesperson said.
The flight
The teenager, who lives in Hawaii, was flying to Boston to spend the summer at her grandparents’ home when Mohanty exposed himself on the Hawaiian Airlines flight, according to an affidavit.
She told an FBI investigator that Mohanty boarded the plane with a woman, who he was initially “cuddling” with on the flight, the affidavit says.
The teenager found it odd when she overheard the pair asking each other “basic level” questions, including, “What is your favorite color?” according to the affidavit.
About halfway through the flight, she noticed Mohanty was covered with a blanket as the woman was asleep on his shoulder, the affidavit says.
Then, she observed “Mohanty’s leg was bouncing up and down” under the blanket, prosecutors said.
Shortly afterward, the teen noticed the blanket was on the ground and Mohanty “was masturbating,” according to prosecutors.
Hawaiian Airlines declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Aug. 11.
FBI arrives at the doctor’s door
On May 6, the FBI visited Mohanty at his home and interviewed him about what happened on the May 2022 flight to Boston, the affidavit says.
Mohanty, described as “visibly nervous,” said he “may have kissed” the woman next to him on the flight and denied he masturbated on the plane, according to the affidavit.
“I have no recollection of that,” Mohanty told investigators in response to the teenager’s accusations, the affidavit says.
If convicted on the charge against him, Mohanty could face up to 90 days in prison, one year of supervised release and a fine up to $5,000, according to prosecutors.
Sexual misconduct on flights is on the rise, officials say
The number of sexual misconduct cases aboard flights in 2022 has more than tripled since 2018 in the U.S., according to federal prosecutors.
In 2022, the FBI investigated more than 90 sexual misconduct cases — and 2023 “is on pace to surpass” that number, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington announced in an Aug. 9 news release.
One recent case filed in the Western District of Washington involved a North Carolina man groping a 15-year-old traveler sitting next to him on a Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, McClatchy News previously reported.
In regards to Mohanty, DiMenna said his “arrest should make it crystal clear that the FBI takes crimes aboard aircraft seriously, everything from sexual misconduct as alleged in this case, to assault, interfering with the flight crew, and theft.”
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