A Carnival cruise passenger from New Orleans pleaded guilty to committing sexual abuse against a 15-year-old on a Carnival cruise ship which occurred nearly two and a half years ago.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Kendrick White Sr., age 43, and three of his relatives, two of whom were minors, traveled on what was described as a “commercial cruise ship” out of New Orleans in November 2023. A minor victim, who was 15 at the time of the cruise, was a passenger on the cruise.

Federal criminal documents indicate that White told the minor victim and told her that one of his minor-aged relatives, whom she had met earlier on the boat, was in his cabin and wanted to see her. White then brought the girl back to his cabin before instructing his relative and the girl to engage in sexual intercourse. Both minors declined, and White offered the victim money to take his minor-aged relative’s virginity.

Court documents say the girl refused, and White began to touch the girl inappropriately before pushing her into the cabin and performing sexual acts on the girl before forcing her to perform sexual acts on him and his relative.

White was indicted on September 11, 2025 for sexual abuse, nearly two years after the crime.

White faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 15 years, a lifetime of supervised release, up to a $250,000 fire, and is required to register as a sex offender. While White officially entered his guilty plea before United States District Judge Darrel James Papillion on May 26, 2026, a formal sentencing date has not yet been publicized in the primary Department of Justice notifications. In federal courts,

The press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana omits the name of the cruise line and cruise ship. However, the only cruise ship which left New Orleans on November 18, 2023 and returned to that port on November 22, 2023 was the Carnival Valor which was sailing a 4-day Western Caribbean round-trip to Cozumel, Mexico.

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Image credit: Mason Piscitelli – CC BY-SA 4.0 commons / wikimedia.