LOS ANGELES—A Russian man who boarded a flight from Denmark to Los Angeles International Airport without a ticket, passport, or visa was sentenced Feb. 5 to time already served and ordered to pay for the flight he stowed away on.
Sergey Ochigava, 46, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge George H. Wu to the 93 days spent behind bars, three years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay restitution of $2,174 to Scandinavian Airlines, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said they expect Mr. Ochigava to be placed into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings.
Mr. Ochigava, who held both Russian and Israeli passports, was found guilty last month in Los Angeles federal court of one count of being a stowaway on an aircraft.
According to evidence presented at the three-day trial, on Nov. 3, Mr. Ochigava tailgated an unsuspecting passenger through a security turnstile at Copenhagen Airport in Denmark so that he could enter one of the airport’s terminals without a boarding pass.
The next day, he passed through the boarding gate undetected and stowed away aboard a Scandinavian Airlines flight to Los Angeles. During the flight, the cabin crew noticed Mr. Ochigava because he moved between multiple unassigned seats.
When the flight landed in Los Angeles on the afternoon of Nov. 4, Mr. Ochigava encountered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the immigration checkpoint at LAX. CBP officers were unable to find any record of Mr. Ochigava and discovered that he was not listed as a passenger on that particular Scandinavian Airlines flight or any other incoming international flight.
Mr. Ochigava was unable to produce a passport, a visa, or other travel document to enter the United States, according to testimony.
In response to CBP officers’ questions, Mr. Ochigava gave false and misleading information about his travel to the United States, including telling CBP that he left his passport on the airplane.
Mr. Ochigava had been in federal custody since his arrest at LAX on Nov. 4.
