A Georgia physician allegedly groped his seatmate’s crotch aboard a Delta Air Lines flight to Maine, where the 48-year-old was planning to propose to his girlfriend—later insisting to investigators that his alleged actions were “not sexual” in any way.
Dr. Jake Namjik Cho, a nephrologist in the Atlanta suburb of Fayetteville, ultimately blamed the whole thing on his poor eyesight, telling the FBI that he merely intended to squeeze the woman’s upper thigh but that his hand slipped “because my glasses were off and it was dark.”
Reached by phone on Tuesday, Cho told The Daily Beast he did not wish to comment on the accusations, which are detailed in a newly unsealed criminal complaint obtained first by The Daily Beast.
ADVERTISEMENT
“No, not right now. Thank you,” Cho said before hanging up.
The episode allegedly unfolded aboard Delta flight 2138 on March 17, according to the complaint. The 737-900 took off at 9:20 p.m. from Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for the Portland International Jetport, with a planned arrival time of 11:59 p.m., the complaint states.
Shortly after the plane landed, a woman who had been sitting in seat 17A told police that Cho, who was assigned to seat 17B, had “continuously leaned into her seat area while appearing to be asleep,” the complaint goes on.
Cho “moved his hand onto the seat in the space between him and [the woman], with his hand in contact with her thigh and buttocks,” it says, adding that Cho “also moved his feet into [the woman’s] foot space and touched her feet with his feet.” At one point, the plane hit turbulence, according to the woman, who is not named in court documents. That’s when Cho “appeared to have spasmed and reached over [the woman’s] leg and down into her crotch,” the complaint continues.
Cho “then touched the outside of [the woman’s] genitals from the outside of her pants,” according to the complaint.
The woman told cops that she had previously shifted her body as far as she could away from Cho, which suggested to her that the move was deliberate, the complaint states.
The woman then exclaimed, “Excuse me,” and Cho quickly pulled his hand away, it says.
Cho “appeared to be sleeping or pretending to sleep throughout,” according to the complaint.
Cho and his alleged victim were aboard a night flight from Atlanta to Portland, Maine.
Mike Blake/ReutersTwo days later, Cho returned to the Portland Jetport for his flight back to Atlanta and was stopped and questioned by an FBI agent, a federal air marshal, and a member of the Portland Police Department, according to the complaint.
Cho told the trio that he was a practicing medical doctor and had been in town to ask his girlfriend, who lived in Maine, to marry him. He denied touching, or even speaking to, the woman sitting next to him, and offered to take a polygraph exam to prove it, the complaint states.
On April 1, Cho showed up at the FBI offices in Portland for a second interview, after which he sat for the polygraph. He repeatedly insisted the woman “had made up the story,” but, the complaint goes on, “Eventually, while maintaining that the actions were not sexual, Cho admitted that he touched [the woman] during the flight.”
In a signed statement, he said that once the aircraft took off, “I began to relax and I stretched out my legs,” noting that at “some point, I touched my left foot against her right foot and maintained the contact until I fell asleep,” according to the complaint. “In addition to maintaining the foot contact, I used the contact to keep myself upright, as I have shorter legs.”
Cho said he fell asleep a short time later, and that when he woke up, he was leaning on his left side, facing the woman next to him.
“At some point I saw her and reached out and grabbed her upper thigh with my left hand,” Cho’s statement continues. “I intended to only squeeze her upper right thigh and never intended to touch her crotch. Because my glasses were off and it was dark, my hand slipped from her upper thigh to her crotch. As soon as I did this, she instantly exclaimed something loudly which caused me to remove my hand from her leg and sit straight up.”
Cho said he was “so embarrassed and did not know what to do,” so he closed his eyes and tried to sleep for the remainder of the flight. He also “expressed regret for any harm he may have caused,” the complaint concludes.
Cho, who is charged with one count of abusive sexual contact aboard an aircraft, does not have a lawyer listed in court records. Prosecutors in Maine served Cho with a summons on June 1, instructing him to appear in Maine federal court at 11 a.m. on June 8. If he does not show up, he may be arrested, the summons warns.
So far this year, the FAA has received some 783 reports of unruly passengers, a problem that has increased sharply in the past few years. In 2022, the agency fielded nearly 2,500 unruly passenger reports, after a high in 2021 of almost 6,000.
“Delta has zero tolerance for criminal activity of any type on our flights and at our airports,” spokeswoman Morgan Durrant told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “As such, we work with the requisite authorities when passengers engage in such activity to ensure they are prosecuted to the fullest extent.”
Cho graduated from the University of Florida College of Medicine in 2017, according to his bio. He completed a nephrology fellowship in 2022 at the Maine Medical Center, and is board-certified in internal medicine If convicted, Cho faces up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
