A former California Highway Patrol captain was charged with sexually abusing a flight attendant while traveling to Los Angeles from Florida last month, prosecutors announced Thursday.
Prosecutors allege that Dennis Wally Woodbury, 49, downed a bottle of prosecco during the April 13 flight, slapped a male flight attendant’s butt and yelled, “I love you,” and showed another male flight attendant a pornographic picture, according to the criminal complaint.
Woodbury, of Azusa, is charged with a felony count of abusive sexual contact within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of two years in federal prison.
Woodbury’s attorney, Annick Jordan, declined to comment on the case. Woodbury, who is out of custody on bond, could not immediately be reached for comment. It is unclear when Woodbury stopped working for the CHP. The U.S. attorney’s office wrote in a news release that he had “been dismissed from state service.”
Woodbury was traveling in Jet Blue’s business class section from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Los Angeles International Airport when the alleged abuse occurred, according to the criminal complaint.
Before the flight left the gate, Woodbury allegedly showed a flight attendant a picture of a dog with a blurred image of two men having sex in the background. The man responded, “Oh my God,” and Woodbury laughed and said, “I was wondering how long it would take you,” prosecutors wrote in the criminal complaint.
Woodbury then suggested the two men go on a cruise together.
“When [the attendant] demonstrated how the plane’s oxygen masks worked, he saw Woodbury looking at him and made a hand pumping motion,” the complaint states.
When a different flight attendant was collecting meal trays, Woodbury used his left hand to slap the attendant’s buttocks and yell that he “loved him,” according to the complaint.
Later in the flight, the complaint alleges, Woodbury pulled down his pants to expose his penis to the first flight attendant, who was standing at the front of the plane.
Prosecutors allege that Woodbury asked for more wine and exposed himself a second time after he was told he could have only a nonalcoholic beverage.
Woodbury returned to his seat and slept for the rest of the flight. As he was escorted off the plane by LAX police officers, he shouted to one of the flight attendants, “This is all your fault because you didn’t go to the bathroom with me,” according to the criminal complaint.
Woodbury later told police that the flight attendant solicited him to go to the bathroom, but he declined, according to the court record.
