LOS ANGELES (CN) — A California dive boat captain who was convicted of seaman's manslaughter last year over a fire that killed all 33 passengers and a crew member on board his vessel lost his bid for a new trial on Monday.
U.S. District Judge George Wu denied Jerry Boylan's request at a brief hearing Monday morning after his attorneys, as well as prosecutors with the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, declined to argue over the judge's tentative decision.
Boylan, 70, faces up to 10 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of gross negligence that caused the deaths of the people who died on the Labor Day 2019 diving trip off the coast of Santa Barbara.
The jurors concluded in 2023 that he was responsible for the worst disaster in California maritime history because he didn't have a roving patrol on board during the night who could've spotted the fire before it entrapped the passengers and one crew member sleeping below the deck, and because he didn't train his inexperienced crew how to use the firefighting equipment on the 75-foot boat, the "Conception."
In his request for a new trial, Boylan argued that the judge erred in the instructions he gave the jurors about a lesser-included offense ahead of their deliberations. He also claimed that a prosecution witness — a former crew member of the "Conception" who briefly worked under Boylan in 2019 — had lied when he told the jury he quit working on the dive boat because of Boylan's lax attitude toward safety on board the "Conception."
Wu, however, saw no merit in either argument.
As for the jury instruction, the judge conceded that in retrospect, he shouldn't have included the lesser-included offense instruction — which gave the jury the option to convict Boylan of only a misdemeanor and which his attorneys had asked for toward the end of the trial — at all.
The problem, the judge said in agreeing with the prosecution, was that it is possible to commit seaman's manslaughter without committing the lesser misdemeanor violation — which pertains to negligence while operating a vessel — because operating the vessel isn't a necessary element of seaman's manslaughter. For instance, the fire could have happened while the boat was docked with the passengers sleeping below deck.
However, Wu determined that the jury instruction error made no difference in Boyan's request for a new trial.
"Because the court now concludes that the jury never should have been so instructed, and because defendant was only convicted of the original charge under 18 U.S.C. § 1115 anyway, any error defendant perceives in the manner of the court’s lesser-included instruction is beside the point," he said.
With respect to the testimony of the former crew member, Brian Priddin, the judge rejected Boylan's argument that this witness created the false impression that he resigned from Truth Aquatics, the company that owned the "Conception" and two other dive boats, because he didn't want to work for a business that created a significant risk to the passengers' safety.
According to Boylan, based on a complaint Priddin made to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before, the real reason he quit was over the way the company disposed of sewage.
Wu, however, didn't see this as conflicting with Priddin's trial testimony because he indicated during the trial that there had been more than one reason for him to resign.
"Contrary to defendant’s argument, Priddin never communicated to anyone, pre-trial, that the only reason he quit his job with Truth Aquatics was because of a concern about improper sewage dumping," the judge said. "The closest he ever got to suggesting that the lack of a roving patrol was not one of the reasons he quit was during his interview with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and associated investigators when he told them that the 'strange' feeling he got about there apparently not being a night-watch was when he 'had already decided to quit, really, and that’s my last trip.'"
The judge said that he didn't interpret that discussion "as clearly indicating that this reason did not then become another reason he took into consideration in ultimately quitting."
Boylan is scheduled to be sentenced May 2 before Wu.
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