Southwest Passenger Arrested After Playing ‘Footsie’ With Woman, Shouting At Flight Attendant

A Texas man was arrested after he sexually harassed his co-passenger and yelled at flight attendants, causing a Southwest flight to be diverted, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Dallas News.

The passenger, Justin Riley Brafford, 29, was charged with one count of felony interference with a flight crew and another count of a misdemeanor assault for his alleged behavior after boarding Southwest Flight 859 from Los Angeles to Dallas, on Tuesday.

The woman who sat next to Brafford claimed the latter placed his arm on her leg as the plane was about to take off, something the former tried to initially ignore by leaning away from him.

However, Brafford’s started getting uncomfortably close to her after that, the woman said. She told the FBI the accused started “playing footsies" with her, asking her all kinds of personal question such as her name, where she was from and whether she would be staying at a hotel alone.

When the woman asked him to stop kicking her, she claimed Brafford started tugging on her sweater. And after she had declined his invitation to going out for drinks with him, he whispered, "Don't [expletive] with me.”

When the authorities questioned the accused, he said he might have misread the situation as he thought the woman was flirting with him when they were watching videos together on her computer.

Apparently, Brafford was sitting in such a close proximity with the woman that the flight attendant thought they were a couple.

According to the complaint, the woman requested the flight attendant to be relocated to a different seat after Brafford started getting close to her and the airline staff complied, shifting her belongings from her old seat to the new one.

However, even that did not help, as Brafford came over to her new seat with a drink and confronted her, the woman claimed, adding she was crying at the time.

When the flight attendant got involved in trying to resolve the matter, Brafford started yelling at the crew member. The accused went "from zero to sixty in nano-seconds” and stopped acting like a "like a normal person" the complaint stated, making the attendant suspect he might be on drugs.

Brafford later told the FBI he had indeed taken methamphetamines the day prior to the flight, adding he had overdosed on heroin Saturday. He also claimed God had been talking to him during the flight.

As a result of the ruckus created by Brafford, the flight was diverted to Albuquerque and he was taken into custody once the plane landed.

Southwest Airlines said in a statement: "The safety and comfort of everyone on board every operating aircraft is our highest concern."

If convicted of the charges, Brafford could be facing up to 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. He was remanded into federal custody after his initial court appearance in New Mexico on Wednesday.