Uriel Kaykov, of Great Neck, sentenced for 'offensively touching' passenger on flight, court records show

A Great Neck man who admitted to "offensively touching" a fellow passenger on a flight to Kennedy Airport was sentenced Monday to 6 months in prison, according to court records.

Uriel Kaykov, 36, had faced charges of abusive sexual contact in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States and assault in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States in connection with the June 15, 2022, assault on a Delta Air Lines flight from Phoenix, according to court records On Aug. 21, 2025, three days before he was to be tried, Kaykov pleaded guilty to the second of the two counts, a misdemeanor.

The assault occurred as Kaykov and a woman, 26, flew overnight from Phoenix, where she was "participating in a youth ministry retreat," said Molly Delaney, an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a sentencing memorandum dated Feb. 26. It was not clear in the memorandum why Kaykov was on the flight, but he was traveling to Kennedy with a cousin who sat in the aisle seat next to him.

After the flight left Phoenix, the woman fell asleep, Delaney said. She later woke up to "a ‘weird’ feeling she could not identify," the prosecutor said. After using the restroom and returning to her seat, she again went to sleep. She awoke this time to Kaykov’s hand rubbing an area of her body above her clothing. She reported the incident to a flight attendant, who moved her to another section of the plane.

In her victim impact statement, contained in the court records, the woman said the attack caused "regular nightmares reliving that moment" in the years since and robbed her of "a sense of trust in others."

"The exhaustion from that has affected every part of my life, my work, my relationships, my ability to feel fully present," she said. "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."

Jacob Kaplan, Kaykov’s defense attorney, did not immediately respond to telephone messages seeking comment Monday.

In her memorandum, Delaney asked Second Circuit Visiting Judge Denny Chin to sentence Kaykov to 3 to 6 months' imprisonment to promote "deterrence" at a time when "sexual assaults aboard airlines have been steadily and alarmingly increasing for over a decade." Chin imposed the maximum sentence on Monday at the Theodore Roosevelt U.S. Courthouse in Brooklyn.

"Millions of strangers are crammed daily into commercial flights crossing, entering and exiting the United States," Delaney added. "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."