Man Accused of Molesting Girl on Plane

A Hermosa Beach man has been arrested on charges of molesting a 12-year-old girl on a crowded Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, police in Las Vegas said Tuesday.

The girl said that other passengers and a flight attendant did nothing to stop the man despite her loud and repeated cries to “Stop touching me! I don’t like it!”

The girl’s mother, Tammy Ruffner, said the suspect approached her after the plane landed and “told me I was a neglectful mother for allowing my daughter to fly alone.”

Moments later, when the man tried to leave, Ruffner’s boyfriend and a Southwest employee grabbed the suspect and held him until police arrived, Ruffner said.

Robert Edward Gustafson, 48, was arrested at McCarran International Airport and held at the Clark County Detention Center on $30,000 bond, Las Vegas police said. Gustafson later posted bail and was released.

Southwest issued a statement from its corporate offices in Dallas expressing regret about the incident and saying that an internal investigation has begun, according to a published report.

The girl’s father, Steve Craig, who is divorced from Ruffner, said his daughter visited him in Lakewood last weekend. He said he put her on Southwest’s Flight 407 for the 45-minute trip to her home in Las Vegas Sunday night.

The airline does not assign specific seats to its passengers.

The girl said that before she boarded the plane, she saw two friends of her father who were going to be on the same flight. She said she boarded early, selecting an aisle seat for herself and saving the two seats beside her for her father’s friends.

“But two (other) men got on the plane and told me they wanted those seats,” she said. “They said I couldn’t save seats. They pushed me over next to the window and sat down. . . .

“I turned away and tried to go to sleep, but the man next to me reached over me,” she said. “He touched my breasts . . . and the inside of my leg. . . . I asked him to stop, and told him I didn’t like it, but he kept doing it. . . .

“The other passengers did absolutely nothing,” she said. “The lady behind me said, ‘Be quiet!’ The others did nothing.”

The girl said that when a male flight attendant stopped by to serve drinks, she turned to Gustafson and said in a loud voice, “Stop touching me! . . .”

“But the steward did nothing,” she said. “I looked right at him, and he did nothing.”

The girl said she didn’t get up and try to find her father’s friends “because I didn’t want to push past those two guys next to me. Besides, the plane was full, and I didn’t think I could find another seat.”

When the plane landed in Las Vegas, the girl ran to her mother and burst into tears. The mother’s boyfriend and a Southwest supervisor chased down Gustafson and held him until the arrest was made, the girl said. Police said the man who had been sitting with Gustafson was not held.