Cruise Ship Law

As millions of vacationers head out on exotic cruises during the busy summer season, few give a thought to becoming a victim of assault while on board a cruise ship.

According to the FBI, in recent years the leading crimes reported on cruises have been physical and sexual assaults. In March of this year, a 42-year-old female passenger on the Coral Princess claimed that a Portuguese man, who was a member of the ship's crew, sexually assaulted her, the FBI noted. Coral Princess is owned by Princess Cruises.

The woman allegedly met the 38-year-old man for drinks in a ship dining room, and according to her statement, the encounter turned into a terrifying one when the man blocked the doors, trapped her inside the room and forced her into performing oral sex.

Charles Lipcon, a Miami-based maritime lawyer, noted: "Travelers have this idea they are in a special cocoon where nothing bad can happen," adding: "That’s just not true." Lipcon is currently representing the Coral Princess passengers and has previously handled over one hundred cruise assault cases.

As the $22 billion cruise industry continues to grow, addressing the issue of on board assaults has become increasing important to lawmakers.

Now that the cruising season is in hot demand, millions of travelers are very eager to embark on their one of a kind vacations. However, little do many of these people know that they could very easily fall victim to sexual crimes at sea.

The FBI says that sexual assaults are the leading crimes that are committed on cruise ships in the past few years. Just in March, a 42-year-old female on a Coral Princess says that a Portuguese crew member had sexually assaulted her during the cruise. The woman says that she had met the 38-year-old crew member for drinks in a dining room on the boat. However, the nice encounter quickly turned into something terrifying as the crew member blocked the doors and forced her into performing oral sex on him.

A Miami, Florida lawyer, Charles Lipcon, said that travelers on these ships think that they are in a special cocoon that nothing bad can happen to them. Thus, they leave themselves wide open to attacks. On these ships, many women are walking around in swim suits and fancy dresses, and they do not know what other passengers or crew members may be thinking about. Charles has represented over one hundred cruise assaults in the last decade.

Many of these cruise line crimes have made headline news over the past few years. One such story was of the Connecticut newlywed who had went missing in 2005 during her honeymoon cruise on board a Royal Caribbean cruise.

Although cruise companies will not report any kind of crimes like these to the public, they are required to report all crimes to the FBI. Between 2002 and 2007, the FBI had over 184 cases opened on crimes that happened on cruise ships. However, the cruise lines point out that these numbers are small when compared to how many passengers sailed during that time span.

It's the midst of peak cruising season, and millions of travelers are eagerly embarking on exotic vacations without thinking they could ever fall victim to a crime at sea.

But sexual and physical assaults were the leading crimes committed onboard cruise ships in recent years, the FBI says. In March, a 42-year-old female passenger aboard the Coral Princess says a Portuguese crew member sexually assaulted her during a cruise, according to an FBI affidavit.

The woman met the 38-year-old crew member for drinks in a dining room on the cruise ship operated by Princess Cruises, which did not respond to CNN's request for comment. The friendly encounter turned terrifying, the woman told the FBI, after her assailant blocked the doors to the room, trapping her inside, and forced her to perform oral sex.

"Travelers have this idea they are in a special cocoon where nothing bad can happen," says Charles Lipcon, a leading maritime lawyer in Miami, Florida, who is representing the alleged victim from the Coral Princess and has handled more than a hundred cruise assault cases in the last decade. "That's just not true."

Addressing cruise ship violence has become an important issue for lawmakers as the $22 billion cruise industry proliferates. About 12 million North Americans will set sail on a cruise this year, according to the Cruise Lines International Association, a trade organization representing the industry.

Cruise crimes have made headlines in recent years, like the Connecticut newlywed who vanished from his Royal Caribbean honeymoon cruise in 2005. Last Tuesday, the U.S. Coast Guard began searching for a passenger who went missing on a Carnival cruise ship.

Though cruise companies don't display crime statistics to the public, they are required to report serious incidents involving Americans to the FBI and U.S. Coast Guard. Salvador Hernandez, deputy assistant director at the FBI in 2007, told lawmakers that the FBI opened 184 cases on crimes that occurred aboard cruise ships between 2002 and early 2007.

The cruise industry points out that those numbers are small when compared with the number of passengers served by the industry -- about 64 million in that same five-year period.

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Rep. Doris Matsui of California have introduced the 2009 Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act, which requires the cruise industry to publicly report crimes and improve safety on board. It mandates peepholes and security latches in cabins. This week, several victims of cruise crimes will meet with senators to discuss the issue.

The cruise industry says that it is "working closely" with lawmakers on the bill and that passenger safety is a top priority.

Royal Caribbean International, the second-largest cruise vacation company, has closed-circuit television cameras in hundreds of public locations on its ships, according to the company's Web site. Cunard Lines, which operates luxury cruises, wouldn't share security details with CNN but said its ships carry kits that investigators need to gather evidence of rape.

The number of attacks on ships is probably higher than reported, sexual assault experts say, because rape victims are afraid to come forward on an isolated ship with perpetrators in close quarters.

They also say cruise travelers are at a higher risk for attack because of readily available alcohol and a partying mentality on the vessels, which haul an average of 2,000 passengers each from across the globe. Of the attacks investigated by the FBI, a majority involved the use of alcohol.

Cruise lines disagree, saying people are safer on the ships than they are in their own communities. The companies provide 24-hour security and screen passengers' belongings.

"The cruise ship is a closed community," said Michael Crye, executive vice president of the Cruise Lines International Association. Security officers "have absolute access to everyone onboard," he said, because each person has been documented before boarding the ship.

Authorities say passengers should report crimes immediately to a cruise line security officer or staff member on board. There are no U.S.-mandated "cruise police," nor are FBI agents assigned to cruise ships.

"It's unclear what you should do when you're on a ship," says Evelyn Fortier, vice president of policy at the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. "1-800 numbers don't always work when you're at sea."

Some attorneys say the security and medical authorities aboard the ships may be biased in their investigations.

"The cruise workers are paid by the cruise lines. Do you honestly think the cruise ship doctor will be favorable toward the victim?" says Michael Ehline, a maritime attorney in Los Angeles, California.

Vessels need independent, third-party security officers and cruise doctors, critics say. They point out that even the airline industry has federal air marshals on planes with international itineraries.

Attorneys for the victims also point out that FBI statistics on cruise crime show that in nearly half of the incidents, a crew member is the suspect, which may deter victims from coming forward because they don't know which employees to trust.

The Cruise Lines International Association says on its Web site that the industry's work force is prescreened by the U.S. State Department, which is responsible for issuing work visas to foreigners working on ships that stop in U.S. ports.

Many passengers are unaware that being on a cruise ship is equivalent to being in a foreign country. Vessels are typically foreign-flagged from countries like Liberia and Panama.

Cruise lines aren't obligated to follow the crime investigation and reporting guidelines that law enforcement would follow on U.S. soil, attorneys say. Filing lawsuits can also be difficult when the crime occurs in foreign waters because the trials can sometimes take place in courts abroad.

"They [cruise lines] will commit to nothing," says Ken Carver, president of International Cruise Victims, a nonprofit group. "They will sell you the tickets," he says, "and then fail to take responsibility."

Carver's daughter disappeared on a Celebrity cruise ship in 2004. He filed a lawsuit in 2005 accusing the cruise company of hiding information about her disappearance. The suit was settled a year later.

Some attorneys question the training of private cruise ship security officers.

Laurie Dishman, 38, testified before Congress that she was raped aboard a Royal Caribbean ship three years ago. She said cruise staff instructed her to gather evidence, so she and a friend went to the cabin where the assault occurred and piled her clothes and bed sheets into plastic bags they were given.

"We didn't know what we were doing," says Dishman. She said she was later told by authorities there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute a criminal case. "It makes me frustrated looking back that the cruise lines didn't handle evidence properly."

Dishman's suit against Royal Caribbean was settled in early 2008. She says she can't disclose the amount.

Cruise industry officials say their security officers are trained in how to preserve evidence. Carnival Cruise Lines, the largest cruise company in the world, says its security personnel must have previous security, military or law enforcement experience.

Even if evidence is gathered properly by cruise security, the time that elapses between the crime and FBI involvement may threaten the integrity of an investigation. In the Coral Princess case in March, three days passed before the ship docked in California and FBI agents could step aboard.

That incident, however, was handled in exemplary fashion, say attorneys and even some cruise line critics. The evidence was sufficient enough for the U.S. District Attorney's Office in the Central District of California to charge the alleged offender, Jorge Manuel Teixeira, with aggravated sexual abuse.

Teixeira is pleading not guilty to the federal offense, which carries a possible life sentence. Teixeira says the encounter was consensual, according to his attorney.

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. District Attorney's Office prosecuting Teixeira, said charging offenders with cruise-related crimes can also be complicated by challenges such as tracking key witnesses abroad. The biggest threat, though, is the time lag, when valuable evidence can disappear or be tampered with, he said.

"When we can bring the case, we'll bring the case," he said. "Teixeira is a good example."

A new high school graduate plunges into the Gulf of Mexico while on a celebratory cruise with friends and his parents. A man tumbles over a rail on a cruise ship as it returns to port. A woman goes overboard while on a cruise with her husband to mark her 50th birthday.

All three incidents took place within the past four weeks on cruise ships in the Gulf of Mexico. How do these things happen?

There's no one factor, according to those who watch the cruise industry.
"I think some of is related to crime and some of it is related to drinking. Normally, it's because they were doing something crazy," said Charles Lipcon, whose Miami law firm, Lipcon, Margulies & Alsina, represents passengers and crew members in lawsuits against cruise lines.

"Usually, the cruise line is not responsible." On May 24, Bruce O'Krepki, 18, of Hammond, La., went overboard from the Carnival ship Fantasy about 150 miles southwest of Tampa, Fla. He was on a post-graduation cruise chaperoned by his parents. The Coast Guard spent two days searching a 5,300-square-mile area for him, but he wasn't found.

On Monday, the Coast Guard was called into action again after Michelle Vilborg, 50, of Bay Minette, Ala., went missing from the Holiday, another Carnival ship. A fellow passenger reported hearing a splash as the ship was about 75 miles southwest of Pensacola, Fla. Rescuers suspended the search for Vilborg on Wednesday.

The third overboard incident, which also happened Monday, had a happier ending. Larry Miller, 46, was found clinging to a buoy after he fell from a cruise ship that was returning to port in Tampa. Miller said he slipped while climbing a railing so he could get a better view of the scenery.

Miller was a passenger on the Carnival ship Inspiration.
In an e-mail message, Vance Gulliksen, a spokesman for Carnival, said the cruise line's ships are "extremely safe" and that "it is virtually impossible for a guest to simply fall off a cruise ship." All Carnival ships have 44-inch railings and uniformed security guards on patrol 24 hours a day, he said.
Carnival and other cruise lines don't release information on how many people go overboard from their ships, and the Cruise Lines International Association, which represents 24 providers serving North America, also declined to release such data. The association stressed, however, that passenger safety was its top priority.

According to a tally kept by an independent observer, at least 12 people have gone overboard from cruise ships so far this year. Seven of those cases involved Carnival ships. Last year, there were nine overboard reports, two of which involved Carnival.

Those numbers are from Ross Klein, a sociology professor in Canada who has written four books on the cruise industry. On his Web site, cruisejunkie.com, Ross tracks all sorts of cruise-related issues, ranging from flu outbreaks to labor and environmental practices.

Klein said he gathers his information from media reports, as well as cruise passengers and crew members.

"I think in some [overboard] cases, the cruise lines are at fault. In some cases, they aren't," he said. "There are people who are stupid. There are people who leave suicide notes. But those certainly are not the majority of cases."
There are no statistics on how many of the cases involve alcohol, but Klein, like Lipcon, said he believed drinking plays a role. Klein suggested that cruise lines could do a better job of training their staffs to serve alcohol responsibly. They could also expand surveillance systems and boost their security staffs, he said.

Klein also expressed concern about cases in which people just vanish from cruise ships without a trace.

"I think there area a number of incidents where people disappear under mysterious circumstances," he said.

Over the past few years, such disappearances have led to several congressional hearings on cruise ship safety and security. One of the most sensational cruise mysteries was that of George Allen Smith, who vanished from a Royal Caribbean ship in 2005 while honeymooning with his wife. His family accused Royal Caribbean of trying to cover up his killing.

No charges were filed, but the cruise line reached a financial settlement with his estate. Earlier this month, 2,200 pages of court documents were released in his case, the Hartford Courant reported.

Merrian Carver, 40, also disappeared from a cruise ship, and her fate remains a mystery five years later. Carver embarked on a Royal Caribbean Alaska cruise in 2004, and her cabin attendant noticed that her room appeared unused after the second day of the trip. But the cruise line didn't alert her family that she was missing. It took her parents weeks to learn that she'd even gone on the cruise.

The tragedy turned her father, Kendall Carver, into an activist for cruise safety and led him to found the advocacy group International Cruise Victims.
Carver, a former insurance executive, has spent the past several years pushing the cruise industry to be open about the accidents and crimes that occur on ships, and to improve security. Those efforts may pay off soon. He plans to travel to Washington next week because the Senate is expected to begin marking up a bill that would require cruise ships to bolster security, make crime reports public and train personnel in collecting and preserving evidence from on-board crime scenes.

"Unless there is legislation, this story is going to keep happening," Carver said.

Venezuela has quarantined a visiting cruise ship following an outbreak of swine flu on board.

More than 1,200 passengers and crew will be kept on board the Spanish-owned Ocean Dream, which has docked at the Venezuelan island of Margarita.

They were stopped from disembarking at previous stops in Barbados and Grenada after three crew members were diagnosed with the flu virus.

Eleven more crew members are reported to have symptoms.

"The virus was detected in three crew members and the boat must now stay in quarantine until June 24," said Venezuelan health official Jorge Alchaer.

Ocean Dream is managed by the Spanish tour operator Pullmantur. Miami-based Royal Caribbean, which owns Pullmantur, said it could not comment on the situation.

The passengers’ nationalities were not immediately known.

Last week the World Health Organisation declared the virus a global pandemic that has spread to 74 countries. There have been some 30,000 cases diagnosed globally and more than 140 deaths.

Royal Princess Cruise Ship Update, 5:44 p.m. EDT: The latest from Princess is that the fire has been extinguished, but passengers will remain at their muster stations until further notice. The ship is currently operating on emergency power and lighting. We'll keep you posted.

(3:23 p.m. EDT) -- A fire broke out in the engine room on Princess Cruises' Royal Princess at 8:10 p.m. local time on Thursday as the ship was departing from Port Said, Egypt. No injuries have been reported, but one passenger was taken to the ship's medical center after complaining of chest pain.

A statement from Princess says that passengers aboard were called to their muster stations, and fire teams were deployed. All 733 passengers and 393 crewmembers have been accounted for. Royal Princess is currently in the middle of a 12-night Holy Land sailing from Rome to Athens and is now anchored off the coast of Port Said.

Princess spokeswoman Karen Candy said there is no word yet on whether the incident will delay any of the ship's remaining calls in Ashdod (Jerusalem), Haifa, Kusadasi or Patmos Island. Royal Princess is due in Athens on the 25th.

Princess has established phone lines to field inquiries from family members of passengers and crew aboard the ship. For inquiries about passengers, dial (800) 693-7222. For inquiries about crewmembers, call (661) 753-2804.

We'll keep you posted as further information becomes available.

TAMPA - It's not easy to fall off a cruise ship, and it doesn't happen often, but when it does twice in 24 hours in the Gulf of Mexico, it prompts conversation around another body of water, this one found directly behind Bill in accounting.

Hear about the guy who fell off the cruise ship? we say.

Must've been drunk, we say.

Must've been doing that scene from Titanic.

But it's rare that we assign any kind of context to these - what are they? Falls? Accidents? Jumps? Worse?

Perhaps that's what captures our interest about at-sea plunges. When no one is around to witness a passenger descend from a floating city and disappear into the darkness, we're left to our assumptions.

So far this year, 12 passengers or crewmen have gone overboard from cruise ships or ferries. That includes the Alabama woman still missing after a Tuesday morning fall 75 miles southwest of Pensacola, and the man found Monday morning clinging to a buoy near Fort De Soto, and an 18-year-old from Louisiana who fell overboard in late May about 150 miles southwest of Tampa.

That's according to Ross Klein, a professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland and one of the only keepers of such data. Because there is no central government agency that tracks disappearances or deaths or falls from cruise ships, Klein relies on media reports from around the world to keep tabs on an industry intent on spreading a completely different idea.

"They're trying to sell a vacation product and this isn't good news," Klein says. "They tout cruising as the safest mode of transportation anywhere in the world. People go on them expecting to be safe, and these incidents contradict that perception."

Since 2000, the highest number of incidents reported came in 2006, when 22 people went overboard. But 12 million people cruised that year. That means roughly one of every 545,454 people who cruised in 2006 wound up in the drink. Not an astonishing safety hazard.

But if you consider that one of those reports was about a family with four children who returned from vacation with only three...

Or that one was about a man who returned from a Christmas cruise without his wife...

How do you fall off a cruise ship?

"It is virtually impossible for a guest to simply fall off a cruise ship," says Carnival Cruise Lines spokesman Vance Gulliksen in an e-mail.

"I always say I wish the English language had better words for people who go beyond safety barriers intentionally and lose their grip," says Paul Motter, editor of CruiseMates.com, an online guide to cruising. "I have no better word for it. Generally we say they are 'gone overboard under unknown circumstances.' "

Practically, falling overboard is a challenge. It would involve climbing or jumping or the right kind of momentum.

Carnival Cruise Lines' ships have 44-inch high railings and warning signs, says Gulliksen. They have uniformed security patrolling 24 hours a day.

Even cruise critics agree it's not easy. "Nine times out of 10, the person did something dumb," said Charles Lipcon, a Miami attorney and author of Unsafe on the High Seas: Your Guide to a Safer Cruise.

Lipcon has litigated a few where people have fallen overboard, including one in which a woman went missing and her purse was found on the deck and a security camera had been covered.

"They're very difficult cases," he said. "You need to prove that the cruise lines have violated some duty. And normally they don't. You can't keep people from doing dumb things. The ships aren't made out of rubber."

There are trends in these incidents.

Some are suicides. Couples fight, and then one jumps in an I'll-show-you kind of way. Some elderly couples have decided to leave the world together, a last hurrah on the high seas.

Alcohol is fuel. Critics say alcohol sales are a big moneymaker for cruise lines, so they have a tendency to overserve.

"It's drink and drink and drink," says Charles Harris, former chief of security for Carnival who has become an outspoken critic of cruise industry secrecy. "We'll take your money, and if you fall overboard, we don't worry about it." (Carnival's Gulliksen says employees are trained to refuse service to intoxicated guests.)

Then there are the mysteries.

No notes. No suicidal tendencies. No heavy intoxication.

They fall or jump or stumble or are pushed, and no one is there to see, and the Coast Guard searches and the news breaks and we try to solve the puzzle on steadier shores.

MOBILE, Ala. - The Coast Guard sent out ships and aircraft to search the Gulf of Mexico for an Alabama woman who reportedly went overboard from a cruise ship early Tuesday.

Michelle Vilborg, 50, of Bay Minette was reported overboard by the Carnival Holiday at 12:04 a.m. CDT Tuesday, the Coast Guard said. The ship was about 75 miles southwest of Pensacola, Fla., at the time.

Carnival Corp. said a passenger reported hearing a splash in the water about 11 p.m. CDT, prompting a cabin-by-cabin search aboard the Holiday. Crew members lowered lifeboats to look for the woman but found nothing.

The Coast Guard search included two cutters, two airplanes and a helicopter.

The Holiday, with a capacity of 1,452 passengers, is due back in Mobile on Saturday after a five-day trip to the Yucatan Peninsula.

Vilborg's disappearance marked at least the third time in less than a month that a passenger went overboard from a Carnival ship based on the Gulf Coast.

A 46-year-old man who fell off the Carnival Inspiration was recused early Monday as it returned to port in Tampa, Fla. The man, who was found clinging to a buoy, told authorities he slipped after climbing on a railing to get a better view of the pilot boat.

A Louisiana teenager on a high school graduation cruise aboard the Carnival Fantasy out of New Orleans went over the rails on May 24 about 150 miles southwest of Tampa, Fla. Authorities suspended a search after two days without locating his body.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A man found clinging to a buoy after falling from a cruise ship in coastal Florida has been rescued.

The Coast Guard says 46-year-old Larry Miller told them he went overboard from the Carnival Inspiration early Monday morning while it was returning to the Port of Tampa. He was found a few hours later clinging to a buoy near the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in the St. Petersburg area.

He was brought to the hospital with minor injuries.

The Coast Guard is investigating, but a spokesman says it isn't clear how Miller went overboard. There was no report of a missing person from the cruise ship.

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