Russian man who flew on Los Angeles flight with out passport or ticket discovered responsible of being stowaway

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Russian man who flew on a aircraft from Denmark to Los Angeles in November and not using a passport or ticket is responsible of being a stowaway on an plane, a federal jury discovered Friday.

Sergey Vladimirovich Ochigava arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Nov. 4 by way of Scandinavian Airways flight 931 from Copenhagen. A U.S. Customs and Border Safety officer couldn’t discover Ochigava on the flight’s manifest or every other incoming worldwide flights, in line with a grievance filed Nov. 6 in Los Angeles federal court docket.

After a three-day trial, the court docket’s jury discovered Ochigava, 46, responsible of 1 depend of being a stowaway on an plane. He faces a most sentence of 5 years in federal jail when he’s sentenced Feb. 5, the U.S. Division of Justice stated in a press release.

Prosecutors introduced proof on the trial that confirmed Ochigava entered a terminal at Copenhagen Airport in Denmark and not using a boarding move by tailgating an unsuspecting passenger via a safety turnstile. The following day, he boarded the aircraft undetected, prosecutors stated.

The flight crew informed investigators that through the flight’s departure, Ochigava was in a seat that was purported to be unoccupied. After departure, he saved wandering across the aircraft, switching seats and attempting to speak to different passengers, who ignored him, in line with the grievance.

He additionally ate “two meals throughout every meal service, and at one level tried to eat the chocolate that belonged to members of the cabin crew,” the grievance stated.

Customs and Border Safety officers searched his bag and located what “gave the impression to be Russian identification playing cards and an Israeli identification card,” federal officers stated in court docket paperwork. Additionally they present in his telephone {a photograph} that partially confirmed a passport containing his identify, date of start and a passport quantity however not his {photograph}, they stated.

Ochigava “gave false and deceptive details about his journey to america, together with initially telling CBP that he left his U.S. passport on the airplane,” in line with the grievance, which stated he “claimed he had not been sleeping for 3 days and didn’t perceive what was occurring.”