Cruise Ship Lawyers Blog

Published on: September 14, 2012

Cruise Line and Cruise Captain responsible for Costa Concordia Tragedy

This week in Rome, court-appointed experts have presented their 270-page analysis on what truly happened on the evening of January 13, 2012, which saw the cruise liner Costa Concordia hit rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio and finished its course beached on its size. As a result of a series of the captain’s reckless decisions and Costa Cruise Lines’ incompetent employees, 32 people died that night.

You can read Cruise Ship Lawyers Blog’s entire account and article on the incident of Costa Concordia here.

The court overseeing the criminal investigation in Rome, Italy, had named and ordered several experts to review the audio and navigational data extracted from the ship’s black box. On Thursday, experts turned in their extensive report to the court, which was leaked the same day in the Italian press.

Published on: August 31, 2012

Princess Cruises Launches Media Blitz to try to Absolve itself of Guilt from Stranded Fisherman

By Leesfield & Partners

As last reported two months ago, Leesfield & Partners filed a lawsuit against Princess Cruises on June 5, 2012, on behalf of Fernando Osorio’s parents in the United States District Court Southern District of Florida. The lawsuit is based upon the death of Fernando amd asserts Princess Star’s failure to rescue his vessel in distress, the Fifty Cent, after its crew was alerted by three passengers that they had spotted a small boat adrift over 125 miles from shore, whose occupants were signaling for help.

Fernando Osorio, Adrian Vasquez and Elvis Diaz were fishing off the coast of Rio Hato, Panama, when the engine of the 26-foot panga boat broke down. After being adrift for 15 days and 14 nights without power, the three occupants saw a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean and began signaling and waving t-shirts and life jackets in an attempt to be seen by someone on the large cruise ship.

Their wish came true when several cruise passengers spotted the three men and the Fifty Cent. The passengers, who were using optical equipment to look for birds alerted a crew member who they asked to alert the Captain immediately. As the passengers listened on, the crew member called the bridge and advised of the disabled boat. During the process, they also showed the crew member the distressed vessel through their optical gear, and he confirmed to them he had seen the same thing they had. To their dismay, nothing happened.

Published on: August 23, 2012

Horrifying details emerge in gang-rape of 15-year-old female passenger

By Leesfield & Partners

Florida Injury Lawyer Blawg obtained the complaint filed in Federal Court against Casey Dickerson on August 20, 2012. The investigation and interviews conducted by Federal Special Agent, Christopher Williams, describe a savage attack on a defenseless and inebriated minor child. The complaint is available below for download.

According to the complaint filed in the Middle District of Florida, Casey Dickerson, 31, was a passenger on the Carnival Sensation that left Port Canaveral on August 16, scheduled to return at the same port on August 19. Dickerson and his wife were originally assigned to stay in cabin E-153. Due to Dickerson’s spouse complaints about noise, Carnival reassigned the couple to cabin U-212. Somehow Casey Dickerson retained possession of the key card of the first cabin and right to use both cabins.

On August 19, Carnival contacted the FBI to report an alleged sexual assault on a minor female passenger that occurred during the early morning hours of August 19, 2012. Special Agent Williams met with the victim immediately after the ship docked in Port Canaveral. The young girl provided gruesome details on what she went through that night. The victim, along with a female friend of hers, who is also 15, and four other male minors that she knew, went to Dickerson’s cabin U-212.

Once inside the cabin, the victim said that she was held down by Dickerson and some of the other males, and all took turns raping her. While the attack was going on, the victim’s female friend was being held by one of boys in the cabin’s bathroom. At one point, the victim said that Dickerson was having vaginal sex with her, stopped, and walked to the bathroom door to make sure the friend would not come out and tell the boy who was inside the bathroom with her to “get it on” and to “show her a good time”. While at the door, Dickerson also encouraged the two other boys who were holding the victim down to “switch” and take turn raping the victim.
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Published on: August 22, 2012

Cruise passenger arrested for raping 15-year-old girl on Carnival Sensation

By Leesfield & Partners

Casey Dickerson, a 31-year-old married man, was on a Bahamas cruise with his wife. The large ship, Carnival Sensation, departed from Cape Canaveral last Thursday. Dickerson was arrested by the FBI at the end of the cruise on charges of raping a minor girl in his cabin.

During a very strange camera interview conducted in jail, the alleged rapist said “the cruise was great.” Apparently unaware of the seriousness of the alleged crime, he admitted that he bought alcohol for a group of underage teenagers and invited them to his room. That is where the alleged attack took place.

According to investigators, Dickerson was approached by a group of teenagers to buy them alcoholic drinks. On Carnival ships, the legal drinking age is 21. Dickerson apparently agreed and bought alcohol before inviting the group to party in his room.

Published on: July 25, 2012

36 Cruise Passengers involved in bus accident on way to cruise excursion

By Leesfield & Partners

Royal Caribbean-operated cruise ship, Freedom of the Seas, was in the middle of a 7-night Caribbean cruise originating from Port Canaveral, when it stopped in Pic Paradis, St. Martin.

As is customary, passengers are invited to spend their dollars on cruise excursions while the ship is docked for several hours in the island. One of those excursions is the Loterie Farm Treetop Adventure Tour, which consists of a treetop ropes course and zipline adventure. Passengers had to board a bus, operated by Dutch Tours Enterprises N.V., from the dock to gain access to the location, and that is when an incident happened, in the words of Matt Stead, a Freedom of the Seas passenger present on the bus:

“Just after we went through the Loterie Farm gate we felt the driver hit the brakes, but no brakes and then the bus just started careening down. About half way down we hit a speed bump and everyone hit the ceiling and then the bus just continued rolling down the hill. There was a guy driving coming up the hill while we were going down so we ran into him, flipped that vehicle over and then ran straight down into the ditch. Tree branches got into the bus and many people received whip lashes from the branches. Everyone was screaming manically, we thought we were plunging to our deaths but the tree saved us.”

Another Freedom of the Seas passenger wrote in a message board: “I was on the bus sitting front row, directly behind the driver. My twin boys were sitting front row on the passenger side … It was the most frightening experience of our lives and one which will haunt us forever. I got seriously banged up and required stitches, as well as one of my sons. Had I not dove over to protect them and absorb their impact before we hit, they would have been much more seriously injured. How no one was killed is a miracle.”

From these two accounts as well as multiple others, it seems that passengers feel the driver was negligent in his operation of the 49-seat tour bus, or possibly that the bus itself had not been maintained properly when its brakes seemingly failed at the worst time.

What is also customary is the way Royal Caribbean and the local authorities, who depend on the cruise line industry to bring them tourist money, will spin what truly occurred. Already a spokesman for RCCL is portraying the driver as a life-saver: “This was a traffic accident, a type of which can happen anywhere and is no reflection on the bus company. The bus driver had to take an evasive maneuver to avoid an oncoming vehicle.”
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Published on: July 17, 2012

New arrest of Celebrity Cruises crew member over rape of passenger

By Leesfield & Partners

A 27-year-old woman, traveling with her family, was allegedly raped by a crew member during an 11-night Eastern Mediterranean cruise on board the Celebrity Equinox.

The details of what happened are still under investigation, but some facts were reported by the London Evening Standard.

According to the victim who reported the crime to her parents and to the captain, she and the crew member shared some drinks with the young woman. Tired, she walked back to her cabin and after she made it clear that she was going to sleep. At that moment, the nameless crew member, who had followed her, pushed the woman inside her cabin, threw her on the bed, and performed multiple sex act against the woman’s will.

After she was seen by the ship’s doctor, the captain of the ship reviewed video surveillance footage of the ship and observed the victim sharing drinks with the crew member, as well as the alleged assailant following the passenger to her cabin. He ordered his crew to hold the alleged rapist until the ship arrived in the next port. Upon docking in Messina, Sicily, the man was handed over to the police, with a copy of the video footage.

Upon breaking the news, a Celebrity Cruises released the following statement: “We are aware of the incident involving a British guest on one of our ships and she has opted to continue her cruise. We are liaising with the relevant authorities.”
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Published on: July 13, 2012

Costa Concordia’s black box reveals Captain screamed “I F’d up” to a superior

By Leesfield & Partners

The fate of Captain Francesco Schettino of the doomed Costa Concordia cruise ship seems more and more certain with each new piece of evidence is released by the Italian prosecutors.

Cruise Ship Lawyers Blog has covered this incident from the beginning. At first, it was confirmed that Captain Schettino abandoned his ship before all cruise passengers were rescued and safe. Then, the investigators revealed that the Captain delayed the evacuation of the ship and caused the disappearance of more than three dozens of passengers.

The black box of the Costa Concordia was recovered not long after the tragedy took place and members of the public are now being shown what happened on the bridge of the ship as tragedy occurred.

Published on: July 11, 2012

FBI and Cruise Line Industry hand in hand hiding cruise ship crimes from crime database?

By Leesfield & Partners

The odds of becoming the next cruise passenger victim of a sex crime are unknown.

You and your family decide to go on a cruise to celebrate a special occasion at sea. The luxurious and glamorous temptation of spending a week on a majestic cruise ship is understandable, and for all you know, a quite safe way to spend some quality and relaxing time with your spouse and teenage children.

Two months after coming back from the cruise, your 15-year-old daughter courageously confesses that while alone in her cabin on the cruise ship, a crew-member unlocked her cabin door using a universal key card, and forced her to perform several sex acts. She kept quiet and did not tell anyone until today, because she did not want to ruin the family vacation.

That horrendous event is unfortunately not as uncommon as one may think, and certainly not as uncommon as the cruise industry would like you, potential customer, to believe. Yet, that is exactly what happened in 2010 to a 15-year-old girl and her family while on board a Royal Caribbean cruise in New Zealand, as reported by CNN below:

After years of hearings, committees, and disputes over the lack of statistical data on crimes occurring on cruise ships, Congress finally gave birth to a new law, the Cruise Vessel Security & Safety Act. This law aimed notably at forcing the cruise industry to to abide by new requirements of transparency, including the requirement to report to the FBI all crimes that occur on their ships. The passage of the new law was deemed a bipartisan success, and the essential step in the right direction to finally have a crime database that could be used in the future to improve the security and safety of cruise passengers.
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Published on: July 2, 2012

Cruise ship employee sentenced to 18 months in jail for sexual abuse on 14-year-old passenger

By Leesfield & Partners

Fabian Palmer, a 25 year-old from Jamaica, found himself working on the Enchantment of the Seas, a cruise ship operated by Royal Caribbean. During a Christmas cruise, Palmer, who was assigned to maintaining the vessel’s pool areas, befriended a young girl, age 14.

We reported on the sordid events in a previous article here: Another Crew Member Pleads Guilty to Sexual Rape Charges of Minor Passenger on Royal Caribbean Cruise

For several days, Palmer would leave written notes to the minor girl, until the night of December 23, 2011. That night, Palmer took the child into a bathroom located inside a male locker room. He locked the doors behind them and despite the girl’s protests, performed multiple sexual acts. The FBI came into possession of video surveillance footage that showed Palmer lead the child in the male locker room and in one of the bathrooms.

Published on: June 18, 2012

Hypocrisy continues to plague Cruise Industry

By Leesfield & Partners

While cruise lines continue to say the right thing in press releases and the national media destined for public consumption, the attorneys for cruise lines continuously and systematically fight to deny cruise passengers’ claims, and fight to deny the existence of any cruise lines’ duties in court.

This morning, Royal Caribbean’s cruise ship, Enchantment of the Seas, rescued a dehydrated sailor who needed emergent medical attention. This is the latest rescue at sea, and the second rescue in as many months, that is receiving national attention in the media. This is also the latest rescue since Leesfield & Partners sued Princess Cruises for its failure to rescue Fernando Osorio, who died five days after his drifting boat came in close contact with the Star Princess, a ship Princess Cruises owned and operated.

Days after that story broke in the media, Princess Cruises’ public relations department took control of the narrative and made a step in the right direction when it issued the following public statement on April 19, 2012:

“Princess Cruises is dedicated to the highest standards of seamanship wherever our ships sail, and it is our duty to assist any vessel in distress. We have come to the aid of many people at sea, and we will continue to do so.”

After the above statement was released, Adrian Vasquez, who was a companion of Fernando Osorio on that same drifting vessel that Princess Cruises made no attempt to rescue, filed a lawsuit against Princess Cruises for failure to rescue the distressed vessel and for failure to provide him and his dying friends any assistance.

In response to Vasquez’s complaint, Princess Cruises filed a Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it should be thrown out for the following reasons:

– Vasquez did not radio the cruise ship – Vasquez did not fire distress rockets – Vasquez did not deploy distress flares – Vasquez did not deploy distress smoke signals – Vasquez did not utilize any intentionally recognized equipment to signal distress at sea – Vasquez did not attempt to signal with a burning torch – Princess Cruises is uncertain whether Vasquez’s vessel ever sailed within sight of the Cruise Ship ‘Allure of the Seas’
– The law does not impose a duty on ships to investigate whether every passing vessel may need assistance
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