Yesterday, the Department of Justice (DOT) finally released the fourth quarter of last year’s cruise crime data. The DOT data for the fourth quarter of 2023 reveals that fleet-wide for all cruise lines there were thirty-three (33) sexual assaults / rapes. This brings the total number of sexual assaults / rapes on cruise ship for
The Department of Justice finally published the number of crimes alleged on cruise ships for 2023 after failing to do so all of last year. We reported several times last year on the failure to reveal the number of crimes, particularly sexual assaults which continue to be the most prevalent crimes on cruise ships.
A passenger aboard the Margaritaville At Sea’s Paradise cruise ship alleges that a crew member snuck into her passenger cabin and assaulted her while asleep, according to the Palm Beach Post. She is suing the cruise line using the alias “Jane Doe.” Last August, the Miami New Times, among other outlets, reported that the
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced last week that Salem Christopher Diop, age 22, of Kingston, Pennsylvania, was indicted by a federal grand jury on a sexual assault charge.
The indictment and press release state that on July 8, 2023
Last Friday morning, a cruise ship carrying over 3,000 passengers reported to the local police department in Hilo, Hawaii that it was missing a guest as it sailed toward that port. The police department in Hilo received the call at 8:40 a.m. on Friday, stating that 59 year
Today a video taken by a passenger from the Disney Fantasy cruise ship was posted on Twitter. It shows a dummy tethered to a rope being dropped over the railing of a passenger balcony at the stern of the Disney ship, violently twisting at the end of the rope, and then being slowly pulled back
Today the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal published an opinion in a case where a group of passengers reportedly gang raped a heavily intoxicated minor aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas.
A Christmas Nightmare
In December of 2015, the day before Christmas, the girl (age 15) in question boarded the Oasis of the
On December 8, 2017, a crew member went overboard from the Vision of the Seas cruise ship operated by Miami based Royal Caribbean Cruises. I reported on the incident at the time based on what passengers were stating about the cruise.
The Vision sailed out of Galveston on December 4, 2017 on a seven day
In a press release, the the U.S. Coast Guard announced that it suspended its search and rescue efforts for a passenger who went overboard from the Carnival Paradise on May 22, 2018. The Coast Guard stated that it ended its search on the following day at approximately 9 P.M. (May 23, 2018), which is approximately
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) announced yesterday that a grand jury indicted a man from Jacksonville, Florida for aggravated sexual abuse by force of a young woman on Carnival cruise ship. The FBI announced the news via a press release.
The indictment arises out of a incident which occurred on February 27, 2018 on the
Yesterday, a male passenger aboard the Carnival Elation reportedly sexually assaulted an 18-year-old woman with special needs during a cruise to the Bahamas. The incident occurred in a hot tub aboard the Carnival cruise ship.
A Jacksonville, Florida news station reported that that the mother of the victim said her “18-year-old daughter has the mental
Surveillance video on Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas shows an attack on a 13 year old boy by two adult passengers.
The men, identified by local Miami news station NBC 4 as Martinez and Lawson, corner the teenager in the ship’s library, before pinning him against the bookcase. The boy had apparently made an
Yesterday, a local newspaper in Louisiana, KLFY, interviewed the mother of missing cruise passenger Juwanna Brooks who disappeared from the Carnival Triumph on January 21st, as the cruise ship was sailing toward Cozumel after departing from New Orleans the previous day.
The cruise to Mexico, a Christmas present from her husband, was Ms. Brook’s
Today, several passengers contacted me to ask for information regarding a Royal Caribbean crew member who apparently disappeared from the Vision of the Seas last week.
On Friday, December 9, 2017, the Royal Caribbean cruise ship, which had left from Galveston, Texas earlier in the week, made announcements that a crew member could not be
MSC Cruises announced that it installed a state-of-the-art man overboard system on the MSC Meraviglia and is planning to deploy similar systems across its fleet of cruise ships.
According to Seatrade Cruise News, MSC Cruises developed an “intelligent video capturing and analysis system” in collaboration with security technology experts, Bosch and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Ken Carver, Chairman of the International Cruise Victims Association (ICV), received the Ronald Wilson Reagan Public Policy Award from the U.S. Department of Justice during the annual National Crime Victims’ Service Awards ceremony on Friday in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Carver founded the ICV after his daughter disappeared from a Celebrity cruise ship during an Alaskan cruise
In 2010, the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA) became law. The statute required, for the first time, cruise lines to disclose incidents of missing passengers, sexual assaults and other shipboard crimes to the American public.
The legislation was the result of the dedication and hard work of our client and good friend, Laurie
Last fall, the Arizona Republic reported that cruise travelers for the first time can see what crimes are being reported aboard cruise ships operating in U.S. ports.
The newspaper commented on improvements once the Department of Transportation replaced the Coast Guard as the agency responsible for reporting crimes on cruise ships leaving US. ports. Consumers previously
