Ex-captain admits drugging, raping US Merchant Marine Academy cadet

BROOKLYN (CN) — In a stunning move the morning his trial was set to begin, a cargo ship captain pleaded guilty Wednesday to drugging and sexually assaulting a cadet in the U.S. Marine Merchant Academy while she was training aboard his ship.

Following two days of jury selection, opening arguments were set to begin Wednesday morning with the victim, identified as Jane, expected to testify as the first witness. Instead, after a two-hour delay, John Merrone admitted he drugged and raped Jane in September 2019 on the commercial shipping vessel Liberty Glory, which was traveling from Bahrain to Corpus Christi, Texas.

“Jane drank alcohol, I knowingly gave her an intoxicant without her knowledge or consent. Jane became incapacitated. I then had sex with her without her consent,” Merrone told the court.

The five-count indictment against Merrone, 54, centers on his assault of Jane, but the ex-captain is also accused of sexually assaulting at least three other women between 1999 and 2021, with multiple victims expected to testify at trial.

Merrone appeared in court Wednesday wearing a gray suit and gray bandana on his head. He now uses a wheelchair and cited health issues resulting from an injury. He pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse and three counts of abusive sexual contact and remains free on a $200,000 bond.

He faces a possible life sentence, though prosecutors estimated sentencing guidelines to be between 188 and 235 months in prison.

Attorneys Bruce Barket and Nicole Aloise of the Long Island-based firm Barket Marion Epstein & Kearon represent Merrone. They declined to comment following Wednesday’s proceedings.

Jane was in tears as the packed courtroom cleared out. Her attorney, Ryan Melogy, said she turned to him following the plea and said, “It’s over.”

“We were surprised,” Melogy said outside the courthouse. “I think the government had a very strong case … they were extraordinarily prepared.”

Jane was a student in the Merchant Marine Academy’s Long Island Sea Year program in 2019, working for school credit and to get firsthand experience as a merchant mariner. She was 21 when the then-captain messaged her and another young female student inviting them to his stateroom for a “soda.”

There, the 47-year-old poured the women alcoholic drinks, which were not allowed on board. After drinking them, both women lost all recollection of the rest of the evening, according to charging papers, and the next morning Jane awoke missing her pants and underwear.

Jane then asked Merrone what happened and, when he replied that “one thing led to another,” she told him the encounter was not consensual, according to prosecutors. Merrone then offered her money, which she declined. She sought medical attention when she arrived back home and reported the assault to the U.S. Coast Guard in 2021.

The Department of Justice hasn’t brought charges related to a sexual assault about a U.S. cargo ship in more than 40 years according to Melogy, a former mariner and graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy himself. His New York-based maritime law firm Justice4Mariners represents two victims in the criminal case.

“Sex crimes are notoriously difficult to prosecute in general. When they occur in the middle of the ocean, aboard a ship, the level of difficulty involved in prosecuting them probably increases exponentially,” Melogy said.

Jane first reported Merrone’s assault to the U.S. Coast Guard in 2021. The following year, CNN published a story making the rape accusation public, and Merrone surrendered his captain’s license.

Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York charged Merrone in May 2025, in the wake of another Merchant Marine Academy student, Hope Hicks, publicly accusing Edgar Sison, the first engineer on her Sea Year ship, of raping her during the program.

Melogy also represents Hicks, who was classmates with Jane. Both reported assaults occurred in the summer of 2019.

“You can see how frequently this was happening,” Melogy said.

U.S. law enforcement has jurisdiction over crimes committed on a ship if the incident occurs within the country’s maritime jurisdiction and the vessel is at least partly owned by a U.S. person or company.

Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, thanked the Coast Guard for its investigative work in a statement announcing the guilty plea.

“The defendant today admitted abusing his authority as a ship captain to carry out a heinous sexual assault on a young woman, who was under his supervision, as she embarked on a career as a mariner,” Nocella said. “It is my hope that today’s guilty plea will give the survivor of this attack some measure of closure knowing that the defendant has been held accountable for his despicable conduct.”

This was not the first time Merrone has faced trial for sexual abuse. In April 2011 he was charged in Florida with sexual battery, accused of engaging in sexual intercourse with another woman referred to in federal court documents as Jane Doe #4 against her will. She described Merrone drugging and then forcibly raping her, grabbing her by the foot and breaking her toe, and taking nude photographs of her without consent, while she was passed out.

Jurors at the Florida state trial convicted Merrone of false imprisonment and battery, but an appellate court set aside that verdict because the trial judge didn’t allow defense attorneys to recall a witness. State prosecutors did not retry the case.

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