A Delta Air Lines pilot and the woman he dated for years just got convicted of sexually abusing her own daughter, starting when the kid was 7 years old. Not for a few months. Not for a year. Five years. Let that sit for a second.

What Actually Happened Here

Rustom Bhagwagar, 35, of Florida, and Jennifer Spitz Powell, 46, of Walnut Creek, California, were convicted this week after two separate juries heard their cases. Powell is the girl’s mother. Bhagwagar was her boyfriend at the time. According to the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office, the abuse allegedly happened while the two were in a long-term relationship together, which honestly makes this whole thing even harder to process. This wasn’t a stranger. This wasn’t even one person acting alone while the other looked away. These were two adults who were supposedly building a life together, and a little girl was in the middle of it the entire time.

The jury found both of them guilty on eight counts of oral copulation or sexual penetration with a child 10 years old or younger, plus 12 counts of forcible lewd acts on a child under 14. That’s 20 counts total between them, covering conduct that reportedly started when the victim was just 7 and continued for roughly five years. I keep doing the math on that and it doesn’t get easier. A kid in second grade. Still losing baby teeth, probably. And this was already happening to her.

The Dual-Jury Setup

Here’s a detail that caught my attention because, not gonna lie, I’d never heard of this before. The court used what’s called a “dual-jury format,” meaning two separate juries sat through the same trial at the same time, but each one only heard the evidence that applied to its specific defendant. So Bhagwagar’s jury heard what pertained to him, Powell’s jury heard what pertained to her, and the court basically ran two trials in parallel under one roof. It’s a rare approach, and from what I can tell it’s mostly used when co-defendants have separate statements or evidence that could unfairly bleed over and taint the other person’s case. Smart, if a little clinical sounding for something this ugly.

Why Would a Mother Let This Happen?

I think this is the question everyone’s going to be asking, and I don’t have a clean answer for you. There’s no quote yet from Powell explaining herself, and honestly, what could she say that would make any of this make sense? A mother is supposed to be the person standing between her kid and danger, not standing next to the person creating it. That’s the part of this case that I can’t shake.

What we do know is that prosecutors treated this as a joint pattern of abuse carried out over years, not a one-time lapse in judgment or a single bad night. Five years is a pattern. Five years means birthdays happened. Holidays happened. A kid went to school, came home, probably did homework at the kitchen table, all while this was going on in the background of her life. It's a grim reminder that even high-profile families aren't exempt, as seen in Halle Berry's shocking child abuse allegation playing out in court right now.

“A rare dual-jury format” allowed the court “to try two defendants at once while making sure each jury heard only the evidence that applied to its assigned defendants,” according to the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office.

The Delta Pilot Angle Matters, And Here’s Why

I know some people are going to read “former Delta Air Lines pilot” and think, okay, so what, the job doesn’t change what he did. And sure, technically that’s true. But it does matter in one specific way: trust. Pilots go through background checks, medical screenings, psychological evaluations, the whole deal, specifically because we as a society have decided we need to trust the person flying the plane with hundreds of lives. That’s the entire premise of commercial aviation working at all. So when someone with that kind of vetted, trusted public role turns out to be capable of this, it’s a reminder that no job title, no uniform, no professional résumé tells you anything real about what someone’s doing behind closed doors.

I’ve seen this pattern before in other abuse cases, honestly – the perpetrator holds some respected position (teacher, coach, clergy member, pilot, whatever) and that status becomes a kind of camouflage. People assume respectability equals safety. It doesn’t. It never has. If anything, cases like this should make us a little more skeptical of assuming someone’s “fine” just because their job seems impressive. That same camouflage shows up in the case of a former firefighter accused of child exploitation who evaded capture for years.

What Happens Now

Both Bhagwagar and Powell are convicted, but sentencing hasn’t happened yet based on what’s been released so far. Given the number and severity of the counts, we’re almost certainly looking at lengthy prison sentences for both of them, though I won’t pretend to know the exact numbers until a judge actually hands them down. California takes forcible lewd acts against young children extremely seriously, and with eight counts involving a child 10 or under, plus 12 more lewd act counts, the sentencing math alone suggests decades, not years.

What This Actually Means

Look, I write about crime for a living, and after this many years, you’d think I’d be numb to it. I’m not. Cases involving a parent as a co-conspirator hit differently than stranger-danger cases, because they completely upend the one assumption kids are supposed to be able to make: that their mom is safe. That assumption got violated here for five straight years, and no conviction, however satisfying it might feel to read about, actually undoes that. A similar family betrayal unfolded in Ohio, where a grandmother allegedly paid for her grandchildren's abuse while they lived under her own roof.

What I’ll be watching for next is the sentencing, and whether we hear anything from the victim herself, now presumably a preteen or young teenager, through victim impact statements. Those statements, when they happen, tend to say more about what actually occurred than any charge sheet ever could. For now, two people who should’ve protected a child instead victimized her for years, and a jury – two juries, actually – saw through whatever story they were telling themselves. That’s something. It’s not everything. But it’s something.