An aircraft mechanic who worked for Delta Air Lines has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a sleeping female passenger who was flying home from Phoenix to Seattle after attending a Taylor Swift concert in Arizona last March.
Duane Brick, 53, took advantage of the woman after she used sleeping pills to try to get some rest on the flight. In a plea agreement filed in a Washington state district court, Brick admitted to abusive sexual contact with the victim aboard Delta flight DL1470 on March 20, 2024.
Brick admitted that he took the sleeping victim’s hand and placed it in his crotch for several minutes before placing his hand underneath her shirt and groping her bare breasts.
Prosecutors had also alleged that Brick attempted to reach into the victim’s pants.
Following Brick’s plea agreement, the victim is now suing Delta Air Lines, accusing the airline of negligence for serving Brick alcohol and then its alleged haphazard response to her allegation of sexual assault.
The victim’s attorney, Mark Lindquist, claims Brick boarded the plane already smelling of alcohol, but Delta’s flight attendants proceeded to overserve him additional drinks.
After the victim flagged down a flight attendant, Lindquist says it took the crew 15 minutes to move the perpetrator to another seat. The lawsuit will claim Delta has failed to adequately train its employees to deal with reports of sexual assault.
“The victim in this case is understandably traumatized. She’s in counseling,” Lindquist told KIRO-TV. “What she wants out of this lawsuit is accountability and some kind of assurance that this is going to be fixed so it doesn’t happen again to another passenger.”
Brick no longer works for Delta. In a statement, a Delta spokesperson told us: “While Delta will decline to comment on pending litigation, Delta has zero tolerance for unlawful conduct and will work with law enforcement entities to that end.”
The sexual assault negligence court case brought by Brick’s victim is the second one that Delta is facing after the parents of a teenage girl filed a lawsuit in a California court following the sexual assault of their daughter on a flight from Los Angeles to Orlando in June 2022.
During the four-hour red-eye flight, the perpetrator began his horrific sexual assault on the victim, repeatedly groping her breasts, prying apart her legs and touching her genitals through her clothing.
The lawsuit alleges that flight attendants “repeatedly” served him alcohol during the initial hours of the flight. Following the assault, flight attendants only moved the suspect a few rows away and allowed him to freely roam around the cabin.
Why isn’t this in federal court like many cases are?