Personal Injury Law

FBI investigates rape aboard Bahamas Celebration cruise ship

By Lipcon, Margulies & Alsina, P.A.

FBI officials are investigating allegations of a rape aboard the Bahamas Celebration cruise ship, FBI Miami spokeswoman Judy Orihuela confirmed Thursday.

A 52-year-old woman reported she was forced to have sex with a male passenger on a ping-pong table on the ship?s deck at about 4 a.m. Monday, according to a Palm Beach Post report.

Celebration Cruise Line sails from the Port of Palm Beach to Grand Bahamas, offering frugal travelers two-night cruises or four-night cruise-and-stay packages.

No arrests have been made, Orihuela said.

Glenn Ryerson, spokesman for Celebration Cruise Line, said the cruise line reported the incident and cooperated with investigators at the Port of Palm Beach Monday morning. ?We have not heard back from them [FBI officials] at this point,? Ryerson said Thursday.

Passengers disembarking the ship Monday morning were delayed a couple of hours as FBI officials boarded the ship and conducted their investigation, Ryerson said.

News of the alleged incident comes on the heels of a new law, signed by President Obama late last month, aiming to increase safety on cruise ships and requiring cruise lines to report allegations of serious crime to the FBI. (For more information, visit my previous blog item on this.) Prior to the new law, cruise lines voluntarily reported deaths, assaults, thefts and other incidents to the FBI.

The Sun Sentinel obtained copies of these cruise line incident reports filed from December 2007 through October 2008 and created a searchable database that makes this information available to the public for the first time.

Originally Posted at: www.sun-sentinel.com

Full post as published by Cruise Ship Law on August 19, 2010 (boomark / email).