N.C. man sentenced for pulling off Muslim woman's headscarf on flight

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A North Carolina man who acknowledged grabbing and pulling off a Muslim woman’s hijab on a flight from Chicago to Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been sentenced to a year of probation that includes two months of home confinement.

Federal prosecutors say 37-year-old Gill Parker Payne of Gastonia also was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine.

Payne pleaded guilty in May to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing a person’s free exercise of religious beliefs in connection with the Dec. 11 incident on a Southwest Airlines flight. 

In his plea agreement, Payne said he grabbed and removed Khawla Abdel-Haq’s hijab, a religious headscarf, midflight. He was seated several rows behind her and did not know her.

Abdel-Haq told Judge Steven Yarbrough that she was afraid to leave her home for three weeks.