Wells Fargo Fires Exec After He's Accused Of Peeing On Female Air India Flyer

The man was arrested and faces possible charges in India of obscenity, sexual harassment and insulting the modesty of a woman.
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India’s aviation regulator reportedly scolded Air India for its handling of the incident.
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Wells Fargo announced that it fired a company vice president after a woman accused him of deliberately peeing on her during an Air India flight from New York to Delhi in November.

The woman demanded Air India have the executive arrested when the plane landed, Fortune reported. But the company instead barred him from flying on the airline for a month, apparently as an alternative punishment.

The woman later filed a complaint, characterizing the man as “completely inebriated.”

The executive’s attorneys claimed that the woman “condoned” the action in the encounter in business class and that their client arranged to have her clothing and belongings “cleaned,” according to media reports in India

Indian police arrested the man on Saturday after he was “on the run,” according to New Delhi TV. He reportedly faces possible charges under Indian law of obscenity, sexual harassment and insulting the modesty of a woman. NDTV reported that the man is being held for 14 days in judicial custody

Multiple press reports and Delhi police have identified the man as Shankar Mishra.

The woman complained that Air India refused to move her to a seat away from the executive and merely offered to spray her belongings with disinfectant.

She said in her complaint that when airline staff brought the man to her to apologize, which she did not want, he “started crying and profusely apologizing to me, begging me not to lodge a complaint against him.”

India’s aviation regulator scolded Air India earlier this week for being “unprofessional” and “devoid of empathy” in how it handled the incident, Fortune reported.

Wells Fargo said in a statement Friday that it had fired the executive, who worked at its subsidiary in India.

“Wells Fargo holds employees to the highest standards of professional and personal behavior and we find these allegations deeply disturbing,” the company said in the statement. “This individual has been terminated from Wells Fargo. We are cooperating with law enforcement” concerning the incident, it added.

In a statement to Fortune, Air India said it “acknowledged that it could have handled these matters better, both in the air and on the ground.”

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