Lawyers representing a convicted sex offender who molested a teenage girl during an Alaska Airlines flight from Anchorage to Seattle pleaded with the court to release him from prison because he lives in a rural community in Alaska that has been neglected by the federal government.
Trayton C. Ballot, 29, from Deering in Alaska, was needed back at home, his attorney told a federal court in Washington state, because he is needed in his community to hunt, dig graves, build roads, and rescue stranded boats.
Last September, a jury found Ballot guilty of abusive sexual contact on board an aircraft over allegations that he inappropriately touched a 17-year-old girl on Alaska Airlines flight AS190 on January 15, 2025, despite her repeated attempts to make him stop.
Ballot has been held in custody for five months, and public defender Mukund Rathi implored the court to sentence him to time served because locking him up for any longer would “increase the justice gap in Deering.”
A court heard how the victim woke up on the red-eye flight to find Ballot non-consensually rubbing her thigh. Trapped in the window seat beside Ballot, the victim initially brushed Ballot’s hand away, but her again put his hand on her leg, not once, but twice.
At this point, the victim lowered her tray table and wedged a stuffed toy between her leg and the tray in an attempt to stop Ballot from touching her. Despite these barriers, however, Ballot once again attempted to touch the victim’s leg.
Speaking in court ahead of Ballot’s sentencing on Wednesday, the victim described how she was “trapped in a small place where I could not defend myself…. It was predatory – attacking me while I was asleep.”
Prosecutors called on the court to impose a two-year jail sentence due to the fact that “sexual assaults on airplanes are a distressingly prevalent risk of modern airline travel.”
His defense attorney, however, spoke of the federal government’s “patronizing” neglect to rural communities like Deering where Ballot was raised and still lives to this day.
Rathi added that the people of Deering and “in particualr, Trayton’s mom, who adopted him as a baby and is old enough to be his great grandmother—are eager for one of their youngest and hardest working men to return home.”
The sentencing memorandum continued: “Every community needs its young and hard-working people. But this is especially true for those that the federal government—which runs the wealthiest country on earth, as Senator Murkowski points out—has systematically neglected.”
“The Court should not join in that neglect by depriving Deering of Trayton any longer.”
The court, however, ended up imposing a sentencing Ballot to 18 months in prison with credit for time served. Upon his release, he will have to complete a mandatory 10 year period of supervised release.
Insight from a flight attendant
In this case, the victim did exactly the right thing by alerting a crew member to what was happening. The flight attendants were then able to move her to a different seat and called ahead so that law enforcement were waiting to meet the plane on arrival in Seattle.
That being said, the FBI notes that it can be incredibly difficult for victims, often trapped in middle or window seats, to speak out when they are in such an intimidating and vulnerable situation.
Even if victims don’t feel comfortable immediately alerting a flight attendant or even a fellow passenger, they should still feel confident in reporting what happened to law enforcement when they feel comfortable doing so.
In recent years, airlines have significantly improved the training that flight attendants receive when dealing with allegations of sexual assault. Crew members are trained to take a victim’s account seriously and to notify law enforcement at their destination.
