Brooklyn man who confessed to assaulting sleeping woman on transatlantic flight gets no jail time

A Brooklyn man who admitted to sexually assaulting a sleeping 25-year-old woman on a transatlantic flight will receive no jail time, with a federal judge saying being registered as a sex offender would ‘impact his ability to find employment and travel.’

Daniel Katz, 36, will receive just one year of probation from his actions after being convicted by a federal jury in June 2021 on both counts of an indictment charging him with abusive sexual contact and assault. 

The United States Attorney’s Office said that Katz assaulted a ‘young, vulnerable woman who was sleeping in a darkened aircraft cabin’ by putting his hands down her pants and touching her while she was unconscious.  

Katz will be on house arrest for three months, has to do 75 hours of community service and placed on the sex offender registry, in addition to a year of probation. 

However, Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block, a Clinton appointee, refused prosecutors’ request for jail time, believing the sentencing to be punishment enough. 

Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block, a Clinton appointee, refused prosecutors’ request for jail time, believing the sentencing to be punishment enough

‘It will impact his ability to find employment and travel. [The] sex offender registry would cause enormous collateral damage.’

Block has previously used the idea of ‘collateral consequences’ in sentencing. In 2016, a man convicted of attempting to import, sell and possess cocaine was given just a year’s probation and claimed the ‘collateral consequences’ facing convicted felons are punishment enough, according to the New York Times. 

He said back then that prison time serves ‘no useful function other than to further punish criminal defendants after they have completed their court-imposed sentences.’

The incident took place on Etihad Airways Flight 103 on February 24, 2018 going from Abu Dhabi to JFK Airport in New York City.  

Katz gave a groveling statement before his sentencing on Friday, according to Yahoo News. 

A Brooklyn man who admitted to sexually assaulting a sleeping woman on a transatlantic flight will receive no jail time, with a federal judge saying being registered as a sex offender is enough

He called the sexual abuse of an unconscious woman a ‘lapse in judgement’ and added: ‘I would give everything to go back in time. In the future, I will always seek to get verbal consent.’

His victim said she still lives with the trauma four years later in a statement prior to Katz’s sentencing.

She said: ‘It’s traumatizing – stuck on a flight for what seemed like days with my abuser. I can’t count how many panic attacks or breakdowns I have had over the weight of this. It still makes me feel so small.’

The pre-written statement – which the victim called reading aloud ‘the most difficult thing I have ever done’ – continues: ‘It’s shocking in 2022, no matter how much and well women have fought for rights, that this has to be debated in court whether it’s right or wrong. I’m addressing the system that has the power to change things, so another young woman won’t hide her abuse.’

Katz does not appear to have been placed on the sex offender registry yet as of this writing.