Man kept offering teen candy, began to ‘massage’ her leg on flight to Seattle, fed say
A man started massaging a 16-year-old high school student’s leg on a flight from Paris to Seattle after repeatedly offering her candy, federal prosecutors said.
The teen was flying home from a nearly three weeks-long school trip overseas — a French language and cultural immersion program offered by her high school in Tacoma — when she was seated next to a stranger on July 3, 2022, according to court documents.
After the Air France flight took off, Milan Edward Jurkovic, of Seattle, tried talking to the teen and kept offering her candy, which she denied, court documents say.
Three hours later, Jurkovic began massaging the 16-year-old’s thigh underneath her blanket and then rubbed her thigh “for an extended period of time,” according to prosecutors.
The teen was “shocked and frozen with fear” before she sought help, prosecutors said.
She got out of her seat and went to her friend, another classmate, and a chaperone to tell them what happened, according to a trial brief.
The chaperone switched seats with the teen for the rest of the flight and the flight crew was alerted to the assault, prosecutors said.
After the plane landed at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Jurkovic “asked a flight attendant twice if he could leave the airplane via the backdoor,” the trial brief says.
Months later, Jurkovic was indicted on Jan. 4 and arrested Jan. 30 in connection with the incident, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.
Now, a federal jury has found him guilty of abusive sexual contact after a three-day trial, the attorney’s office announced in a Dec. 12 news release.
Ryan P. Anderson, a Tacoma-based attorney representing Jurkovic, 35, declined to comment on specifics of the case on Dec. 13.
“There are still potentially significant issues pending regarding this trial,” Anderson told McClatchy News in a statement. “We do not believe now is the appropriate time to discuss these issues.”
At the jury trial, prosecutors said Jurkovic “assaulted the girl ‘for his own sexual gratification,’” according to the release.
“(He) was counting on (the victim) not being strong enough and brave enough to stop him,” prosecutors said.
What happened after the plane landed?
Law enforcement interviewed Jurkovic at the airport after the flight arrived, according to prosecutors.
He’s accused of making “contradictory statements” about what happened when he was sitting next to the 16-year-old, prosecutors said.
At first, he told the school chaperone that he was “rubbing his leg due to bad circulation, suggesting that he inadvertently touched the victim,” according to prosecutors.
He denied hurting her when a Port of Seattle officer told him he was under investigation, then said he “had an itch on his leg” on the flight, prosecutors said.
Jurkovic is facing up to two years in prison at his sentencing hearing scheduled for March 21, according to the attorney’s office.
“Last summer, I joined with our law enforcement partners to call attention to a spike in sexual misconduct on aircraft — crimes such as this one that are traumatizing for victims,” U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman said in a statement. “This case should be a warning to anyone who thinks that in the confines of an aircraft cabin they can get away with unwanted sexual touching.”
In 2022, the number of sexual misconduct cases aboard flights in the U.S. more than tripled since 2018, according to an Aug. 9 news release from the attorney’s office.
Last year, the FBI investigated more than 90 sexual misconduct cases — and “2023 is on pace to surpass” that number, the release said.
This story was originally published December 13, 2023 at 1:29 PM with the headline "Man kept offering teen candy, began to ‘massage’ her leg on flight to Seattle, fed say."
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