Two owners of a dive charter company in the Florida Keys were sentenced to prison terms for their role in the death of a female diver in 2011.
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Two people who owned a dive charter company in the Florida Keys were sentenced in a Miami court for their role in the death of a female diver in 2011 and face deportation when they serve their sentences.
Christopher Jones and Alison Gracey, of British origin, appeared before Judge Lawrence King who sentenced Jones to 51 months in prison and three years of supervised release in the case for his role in the involuntary manslaughter. of Aimee Rhoads, 36 years old.
Gracey was sentenced to the time she has already served in custody: 18.5 months and one year of supervised release. Both will be deported at the end of their sentences, reported the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
The accused spent more than ten years fleeing from the US authorities until they were finally arrested in 2021 in Spain and in January 2022 they were extradited.
Jones, 58, and Gracey, 55, owned Key Largo Scuba Shack, LLC, from approximately June 2010 to December 2011. They operated a 24.8-foot vessel called the “M/V Get Wet.”
The ship went on a dive trip on December 18, 2011 with two crew members and six passengers. During his first dive stop, the sea conditions changed and the waters were choppy. At that moment the boat operator noticed that the bilge pump had failed.
As the divers boarded the boat after the dive, the boat began to fill with water and rock heavily. The “Get Wet” eventually capsized and quickly sank about 30 feet to the bottom of the ocean. During her descent, a 300-pound bench that was not properly secured to the deck of the boat came loose, prosecutors said.
Made of buoyant material, the bench jumped to the ocean surface when the ship sank. One of Rhoads, of Federal Way, Washington, got caught against the windshield of the boat. The woman drowned.
Boat needed repairs
Coast Guard experts inspected the ship and found “serious deficiencies.” None of the bilge compartments, including the engine spaces below the ship’s deck, were waterproof. The aftmost bilge space was covered by a deck plate with holes for 30 bolts, of which 22 were missing and the remaining eight were loose.
The wood on the bottom of the 300-pound bench was rotten and the screws meant to secure it to the deck were too small. Below deck, the holes that allowed water to flow between the various bilge compartments compromised all the bulkheads. A bilge pump had been improperly disassembled and reassembled, causing it to fail, according to authorities.
The Coast Guard criminal investigation following the diver’s death revealed that Jones and Gracey knew prior to the tragedy that the vessel needed repairs, but continued to operate the “M/V Get Wet.”
The US Attorney’s Office said that after inspections, the Coast Guard notified Jones and Gracey that the vessel needed repairs, which included securing the engine center bank cover to the deck and making below deck repairs to ensure watertight integrity. of the bulkheads.
Employees of the diving operation also “repeatedly informed Jones that Get Wet was dangerously flooded. The deck plates were barely attached and the engine bench cover was rocking back and forth.”
The “Get Wet” repeatedly broke down and the ship’s equipment failed, including the pumps intended to empty the ship of water.
On a trip with Gracey on board as a diving instructor, the boat nearly sank, prosecutors said.
In the two months before the ship sank, the “Get Wet” was towed to shore on three separate occasions.
US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Juan Antonio Gonzalez and Zinnia James, Special Agent in Charge of the Coast Guard Investigative Service Southeast Region, announced the results of the sentencing hearing Friday.
This story was originally published on September 11, 2022 9:26 a.m.