Great Neck man who groped sleeping woman on flight to JFK sentenced to six months in prison
Prosecutors say sexual assaults aboard airlines have been rising for over a decade.
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A Great Neck jeweler who works in Manhattan’s Diamond District was sentenced Monday to six months in prison for inappropriately touching a sleeping woman on an overnight flight from Phoenix to John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Federal prosecutors say that on a June 15, 2022 flight, Uriel Kaykov was seated next to the victim while traveling with his cousin. He was originally assigned an aisle seat, but upon boarding, he instead took the middle seat next to the victim, who had the window seat.
The 26-year-old was traveling home from a youth ministry retreat and had fallen asleep shortly after takeoff when she awoke to what she described as a “weird” sensation she couldn’t identify, prosecutors said. She got up to use the bathroom, then returned to her seat and fell back asleep.
When she woke again, prosecutors say Kaykov’s hand was on her, rubbing her genital area over her clothes. She immediately reported the incident to a flight attendant and was moved to a different seat.
Kaykov was charged on Dec. 9, 2024, with abusive sexual contact and assault.
In August 2025, just three days before his trial was set to begin, he pleaded guilty.
The sentence of six months in prison is the maximum a judge could impose for the misdemeanor conviction.
Prosecutors say sexual assaults aboard airlines have been rising for over a decade.
"Millions of strangers are crammed daily into commercial flights crossing, entering and exiting the United States," prosecutors wrote in the sentencing memorandum, "Many flights occur under the same circumstances found here – late at night, aboard a dark cabin and miles from anyone who can be trusted to help. A serious penalty – an incarceratory sentence – is needed in this case so the public at large appreciates that similar conduct carries too high a price to risk replicating."
The victim wrote an impact statement about the incident:
"For years, I have had regular nightmares reliving that moment. I wake up feeling panicked, as if it is happening all over again. Sleep, which should be a place of rest, has often become another place where I am forced to revisit the trauma. The exhaustion from that has affected every part of my life, my work, my relationships, my ability to feel fully present. The hardest part is that something that lasted a relatively short time has changed me in ways that feel permanent. I no longer move through the world with the same sense of safety. I think twice about situations I never used to question. I carry a vigilance that is heavy and constant. . . . This experience has taken from me a sense of trust in others, in my surroundings, and sometimes even in myself. I grieve the version of me that existed before that flight. . . . The assault was not just a single act in time. It has been years of anxiety, disrupted sleep, fear, and emotional pain. It has altered the way I experience the world. No one should have to carry this," she wrote.
