A 52-year-old caterer from New York City pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexually assaulting a man sitting next to him on a Hawaiian Airlines Flight to Honolulu in July 2023.

Juan Carlos Rios Gaviria of Queens faces a federal felony assault charge from Hawaiian Airlines Flight 51 on July 25, 2023, with “intent to commit a felony, namely abusive sexual contact” by willfully and intentionally “touching and making physical contact … in an offensive manner without justification or excuse.”

He will be sentenced March 10 before Senior U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright, and remains free on bail. He faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000 and three years of supervised release.

Rios Gaviria was originally charged by federal criminal complaint with simple assault and abusive sexual contact. He turned himself in to agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Brooklyn on Aug. 22, 2023.

Rios Gaviria was traveling nonstop from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and sitting in a middle row next to a married father whom Rios Gaviria did not know before boarding. They talked and “mutually exchanged phone numbers” while the aircraft was taxiing before liftoff after Rios Gaviria offered tour guide services to the man and his family if they ever visited Colombia. Rios Gaviria told the man that he had been married to a woman, but since his divorce he had been seeing a man, who lived in Hawaii.

He provided a written statement in Spanish to an FBI agent explaining the “events in his own words” and asserted that during their conversation the man he assaulted “talked about having had sexual relations before with men but did not do so anymore because he was married.”

During the flight Rios Gaviria repeatedly groped the passenger, who pushed Rios Gaviria’s hand away and told him he “did not like this” and was “not comfortable with this.” He told Rios Gaviria he did not want to be touched, and Rios Gaviria stopped groping him.

At some point later in the flight, Rios Gaviria grabbed the man’s genitals and the man pushed him away again. Rios Gaviria tried again, and the man used one hand to fend him off and the other to use the inflight touch screen to call a flight attendant.

Rios Gaviria “immediately removed his hands and apologized.”

The man who was groped was described by the flight crew as being visibly angry, with tears in his eyes.

He was allowed to sit in the captain’s standby seat for the remainder of the flight.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Aislinn K. Affinito is prosecuting the case. Assistant Federal Public Defender Maximilian Mizono represents Rios Gaviria.