According to an affidavit filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, a man has been arrested allegedly on magic mushrooms after attacking crew members on a United Airlines flight from Miami to Washington DC on Tuesday.
About an hour into the flight, Cherruy Loghan Sevilla reportedly began “wandering the plane, running up and down the aisle, clapping loudly near the cockpit and yelling obscenities,” the affidavit said.
At one point during its outburst, Seville is said to have “broken a small plastic piece from the bathroom door” and opened it while another passenger was inside.
Seville is also said to have stepped in the faces of other passengers and looked at them and smiled. A father and his daughter, who sat next to him and were moved after he grabbed the daughter’s arm, told investigators that he “was wrong”.
The passenger refused to sit at the request of flight attendants and chose to lie on the floor. When a flight attendant told Sevilla to go back to his seat, he allegedly attacked her by grabbing and twisting her right breast. Passengers, flight attendants and a law enforcement officer on board then jumped in to stop Sevilla, who resisted, but was eventually handcuffed.
During the struggle, Sevilla twisted the arm of a second flight attendant, according to the affidavit.
The out-of-control passenger “continued yelling and screaming incoherent things” while handcuffed for the rest of the flight, according to the document.
Law enforcement officers, including FBI special agents, responded upon landing on the plane and Seville was arrested for attacks within maritime and territorial jurisdiction and for interference by flight crew members.
“We would like to thank our crew for handling this difficult situation professionally,” United Airlines said in a statement shared with NBC News. “We also contacted our crew members to make sure they were okay.”
During an interview with the FBI several hours later, Sevilla said he had ingested psilocybin, a psychedelic known as magic mushrooms, at Miami International Airport before boarding the plane, authorities said.
According to authorities, he also said he remembered being “out of his seat, being noisy and touching people” during the flight and that this was not the first time he had used psilocybin. Sevilla apologized for his actions.
Sevilla has been released on personal identification and will appear in court on Thursday for a preliminary hearing.
His attorney, Shannon Quill, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.