A 49-year-old man in the United States who allegedly groped a woman on a flight from Houston to Albuquerque on Sunday allegedly told prosecutors that according to US President Donald Trump “it is okay to grab women by their private parts”, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

He was presumably referring to a tape that appeared before the 2016 presidential elections in which Trump was heard saying that he could grab women “by the p***y”.

On Monday, Bruce Michael Alexander from Tampa was charged with abusive sexual contact, according to the US attorney’s office in New Mexico. The charge carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail and a $2,50,000 (Rs 1.83 crore) fine.

In her complaint, the woman said she was asleep in her window seat about 15 to 20 minutes after take off when “she felt her clothes move” and fingers start touching her from behind “on her right side at and around her ‘bra line’”. She initially assumed that it was an accident but Alexander reportedly touched her again about 30 minutes later. She then told him that “she did not know why he thought it was okay [to touch her] and he needed to stop”. A crew member then helped her to move to another section of the aircraft for the remainder of the flight, BBC reported.