A Japanese man is spending his honeymoon at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu, facing up to 20 years in prison for assaulting a flight attendant during a drunken struggle on an airplane trip to the islands.
Kenji Okamoto, 30, of Kyoto pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court to one count of interfering with the duties of a flight attendant by assault and intimidation.
"Inside the aircraft I was drinking, and I pushed one of the crew members," Okamoto told Magistrate Judge Kevin Chang through a court interpreter. When pressed for more details, Okamoto said, "I cannot remember very clearly."
Okamoto, who wore a pair of taped eyeglasses without the arm on one side, eventually agreed with prosecutors that he struck the flight attendant with his shoulder and a roundhouse punch.
The scuffle happened May 17, about 2 1⁄2 hours into Delta Flight 278.
According to court documents, Okamoto was flying first class from Osaka to Honolulu when he became upset with a flight attendant who didn’t take his meal tray. The flight attendant told Okamoto his hands were full and that he would be back.
Okamoto got out of his seat and began yelling at the flight attendant, who started backing away. When the flight attendant supervisor tried to intervene, Okamoto shoved him with his shoulder and threw a roundhouse punch, the documents said. The supervisor raised his arms to protect himself, and Okamoto hit the man’s arm, the documents said.
Okamoto struggled with two crew members and an unidentified passenger for about five minutes. Crew members eventually controlled Okamoto with a set of flexible restraints after he managed to free himself from a first set.
Crew members told investigators that after being restrained, Okamoto began kneeling on the ground, bowing, crying and apologizing.
Flight attendants then took Okamoto back to his seat, where he fell asleep.
In a statement to investigators, Okamoto said he rarely drinks, but was drinking heavily to celebrate going on his honeymoon after getting married in April. He had been drinking for five hours before the flight and drank a glass of Champagne and four glasses of wine on the plane, he said.
After a judge said Okamoto could be released on bond, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Hino argued Okamoto was a danger to the community and said Okamoto had lied to investigators about not having a criminal record in Japan. According to the appeal document, Okamoto has a conviction for pushing a police officer in 2008, telling him, "I don’t care about the police." Okamoto was not released on bond.
Last week a federal judge granted the request to hold Okamoto without bail at the FDC because he is a flight risk.
Okamoto also faces a fine of up to $250,000 when he is sentenced Sept. 22.
