A Massachusetts jury convicted a suburban Boston dad of repeatedly fondling a teenage girl aboard a JetBlue flight, committing the shocking act while on the airliner with his wife and four children.

After a three-day trial Jonathan Alan Lefman, 48, was found guilty of sexually abusing the 17-year-old girl seated in front of him on a Boston-bound flight from Puerto Rico in August of 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts announced Thursday. The FBI posted photos of the defendant’s hand poking through the girl’s seat around the time of the deviant offense.

That news went viral with the photos of Lefman and closeups of his groping finger on social media.

Lefman was  sitting next to his 16-year-old son when he probed the seat in front of him to touch the girl’s buttocks without her permission, prosecutors said.

A U.S. Attorney’s Office statement back in March when he indicted by a federal grand jury laid out the details:

Specifically, it is alleged that Lefman intentionally worked his hand in between and through the area between the back and bottom of the seat directly in front of him, where the minor victim was seated, and touched the minor victim’s buttocks without her permission. On at least one occasion when he did so, the minor victim saw his reflection leaning between the seats in the seatback monitor in front of her. On the last occasion when he allegedly touched or attempted to touch her buttocks, the minor victim was able to use her cell phone camera to take a video of Lefman’s fingers protruding between the back and bottom of the minor victim’s seat. According to court documents, after she exited the aircraft, while still on the jet bridge, the minor victim took a video of Lefman as he got off the aircraft.

One of the girl’s adult female family members who was traveling in a different row confronted Lefman after they got off the plane and reported the incident to a JetBlue supervisor, the New York Post reported.

The adult presented video of his probing hand as evidence during the confrontation, according to the tabloid, but Lefman denied any wrongdoing.

Lefman lives in $2.3 million home in Newtown, an affluent Boston suburb, according to the Post.

News outlets did not report any details of Lefman’s defense during the trial.

However, the NBC affiliate in Boston detailed what he claimed following being detained by authorities per the criminal complaint filed in court:

Lefman, accompanied by an attorney, was interviewed later that day by the FBI and state police, according to a criminal complaint filed in court. He told investigators he didn’t recall reaching under his seat or dropping anything during the flight, on which he listened to a podcast.

Asked if he stuck his fingers between seats on the plane, he said, “No. Not that I can recall,” and denied contact with the girl. Shown the video the teen took of the seat and asked if it showed his fingers, he said, “I don’t know,” the document said.

The father of four was found guilty of one count of “abusive sexual contact while in the special aircraft jurisdiction,” according to the Post.

“The defendant repeatedly sexually abused a minor who was simply trying to travel safely aboard a commercial flight,” U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley said in a statement. “No one should have to fear being sexually assaulted, whether in the air or on the ground.”

In using her cellphone and reporting what happened, the teenage girl “showed remarkable courage following an appalling act,” Ted E. Docks, Special Agent in Charge of the bureau’s Boston division, said.

Lefman faces up to two years in prison, five years to a lifetime of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000, according to federal statutes and sentencing guidelines.

He is slated to be sentenced on January 12, 2027.

Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets , which documents one of the worst cases of child sex abuse in U.S. history, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.