Girl allegedly raped on cruise; FBI investigates case involving Blount family

By Rick Laney
of The Daily Times Staff

Editor's Note: We have not included names in this story to protect the alleged victim's identity.

A Blount County grandmother took her 12-year-old granddaughter on a cruise late last year. What was supposed to be a fun-filled getaway to the Caribbean allegedly ended with the granddaughter being raped by a 23-year-old male passenger and left drunk, alone and semiconscious in a hallway at 1:30 a.m.

While formal charges have not been filed against the 23-year-old at this time, both Carnival Cruise Lines and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Miami acknowledged that an active investigation of the incident is under way.

On Nov. 25, 2007, three days after Thanksgiving, the grandmother and granddaughter sailed from Miami, Fla., on the Carnival Cruise Lines ship Victory. The nearly 900-foot, 1,379-room ship was headed for the Eastern Caribbean. Neither the grandmother nor granddaughter had been on a cruise before, and they were excited about seeing Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and St. Maarten.

According to the grandmother, the 12-year-old went to see a magic show with a number of other children who were about her age on the third night of their trip. The grandmother said she waited for her granddaughter on the deck of the ship just 50 feet away from the room where the magic show was taking place.

"The magic show started at 10 p.m. and ended about 11:15 p.m.," the grandmother said. "She came right out to me on the deck when it was over. She said she was going to walk one of the little girls she met -- a girl named Jennifer -- back to her cabin and come right back."

"I was little nervous about it, but I figured I knew where she was going and I knew who she was with.

"About a half-hour later I started getting a little worried, but I just figured they were talking. You know what it's like with a couple of girls that age.

"When she wasn't back at midnight, I got frightened."

The grandmother says she went into one of the restaurants on the ship and flagged down a security guard. The security guard reportedly told the grandmother to go back to her cabin to make sure the granddaughter hadn't simply gone back to their room.

When the grandmother got back to her room -- and found it empty -- she hurried back to the security guard and by 12:30 a.m. a full-scale search was launched.

"They found her on lying on the floor in the hallway," the grandmother said. "She was wearing someone else's clothes and she was talking -- but she was obviously drunk.

"When she went to the magic show, she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but when they found her, she was wearing boy's shorts and a different T-shirt.

"They took her in a wheelchair to the ship infirmary and the doctor used a rape kit on her. She was down there about 90 minutes.

"After they finished at the infirmary, the security officers on the ship cordoned off the room where the 23-year-old was staying as a crime scene.

"They called the FBI from the ship right after it happened. When we got to St. Maarten, the authorities came on board and conducted interviews."

Although Carnival Cruise Lines reportedly offered to fly the grandmother and granddaughter home from St. Maarten, the grandmother said she refused because an FBI agent in Miami told her not to leave the ship.

With three days remaining on their cruise, the grandmother said her granddaughter opened up a little more each day, and provided more details about what transpired that night.

Carnival responds

In a written statement, Jennifer de la Cruz, director of public relations for Carnival Cruise Lines said, "We can confirm that during a Caribbean cruise the week of Nov. 25, 2007, there was an allegation of sexual assault involving a minor female guest and an adult male guest.

"It is standard cruise industry practice to proactively and immediately contact law enforcement when an alleged crime occurs and that is what transpired in this case. Normally notification is made to the FBI, which typically has jurisdiction over alleged crimes involving U.S. citizens on internationally flagged cruise ships, along with any applicable local law enforcement agency, based on where the ship is located at the time or where it is heading.

"In this case, both the FBI and authorities in St. Maarten were contacted by the cruise line. St. Maarten law enforcement did board the ship and conduct a preliminary investigation. Likewise, representatives from the FBI boarded when the ship returned to home port to investigate, as well.

"The cruise line's role in an alleged criminal situation is to collect and preserve all evidence so that it may be provided to the investigating law enforcement agency. All of our ships carry rape kits and when a rape kit is utilized, it is turned over to law enforcement. Cruise lines do not have the laboratory facilities to determine rape kit results. We collect and preserve evidence and provide it to law enforcement, which is what happened in this situation."

Carnival Cruise Lines also provided The Daily Times with a detailed list of its security practices and required security training for its crew members, including the company's requirement that all of its shipboard security personnel have previous experience in security, military or law enforcement. The company said its employees are also trained in terrorism, bomb detection, crisis and crowd management, first aid, firefighting and fire prevention.

"Carnival Cruise Lines is a signatory to the cruise industry's Zero Tolerance for Crime Policy," de la Cruz said. "The safety and security of guests and crew is our number one priority. Any allegation of crime aboard our vessels is taken seriously and reported to appropriate law enforcement authorities."

In counseling

The grandmother says her granddaughter -- who is a seventh-grader at a private school in Blount County, plays soccer and is involved in her church -- has been in counseling since they got back from their cruise. The grandmother is also in counseling because she said she almost had a "breakdown" after they got home.

Judy Oreolla, a spokesperson for the FBI Office in Miami that is investigating the incident, said she couldn't comment because it is still a "pending matter."

According to the grandmother, a 14-year-old girl on the ship was approached by the same 23-year-old male passenger and offered alcohol the day before the incident involving her granddaughter occurred. In that incident, the male passenger allegedly threatened to throw the 14-year-old girl's boyfriend overboard after the girl refused the man's offer to join him for drinks.

"If this would have happened anywhere other than a cruise ship, this guy would already be in custody," the grandmother said as she started to cry. "They don't tell you how different the rules and the laws are when you're on a cruise.

"And they don't tell you how dangerous it can be for a kid to go below deck. They need to warn people.

"I can assure you that I would never take another child on a cruise ship -- never. It's been a nightmare and I'd never do it again for anything."