Grand Jury News

Austal USA has hired Adam Overstreet as vice president of legal affairs and chief compliance officer.Overstreet will manage a broad spectrum of legal issues, including employment and labor law matters, commercial transactions, and litigation. As the company’s chief compliance officer, Overstreet will oversee and strengthen the execution of compliance activities throughout the organization.“Austal USA takes compliance with all laws and government regulations seriously,” Austal USA President Rusty Murdaugh stated.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment last week charging three Alabama men with orchestrating an accounting fraud scheme at the Mobile-based shipbuilder Austal USA LLC.The yard builds vessels for the U.S. Navy, including the Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). Austal USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Australian company Austal Limited.According to court documents, from at least in or around 2013 through at least in or around July 2016, Craig Perciavalle, 52…

A former heavyweight boxer from Montenegro was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday with trafficking in 22 tons of cocaine worth over $1 billion, most of which was part of one of the largest cocaine seizures in American history.Goran Gogic, 43, was arrested on Sunday night while trying to board a flight to Zurich from Miami International Airport, after being indicted by a grand jury in New York.Prosecutors charged Gogic with three counts of violating the federal Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, and one count of conspiracy.

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Friday dismissed the criminal indictment against a dive boat captain charged with manslaughter in the deaths of 34 people when the vessel caught fire and sank off the California coast three years ago.The 75-foot (23-meter) Conception caught fire while most of those onboard were sleeping, killing 33 passengers and a crew member. It is considered one of California’s worst maritime disasters.U.S. District Judge George Wu said in a ruling that the indictment…

On August 11, 2022, a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico returned an indictment charging seven defendants with running a criminal enterprise dedicated to extorting and misleading shipping companies into paying fees for the loading and unloading of cargo at the Port of San Juan—Piers 9, 10, and 11—under the threat of strikes and blockades on the part of union members of the ILA-1740 of the International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO (ILA) and under false representations…

The Biden administration recently issued a sweeping Executive Order [1] aimed at protecting and enhancing competition, and the transportation sector—including air, ocean, and rail—is among the industries specifically identified and likely to see heightened antitrust scrutiny under the new directives. This executive action was soon followed by the long-awaited announcement of Biden’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (Division), Jonathan Kanter, who…

Environmental activists who shut the largest U.S. energy export port for a day to protest climate change agreed to pay police, fire and court costs to settle state criminal charges, officials said on Friday.Greenpeace members halted shipping in September 2019 by dangling on ropes from a bridge over the Houston Ship Channel to bring attention to climate change concerns during a presidential debate in the city.Felony charges of disrupting critical energy infrastructure were later dismissed by a Houston grand jury.

The captain of a dive boat that caught fire last year near Santa Cruz Island, resulting in 34 deaths, was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on 34 counts of seaman’s manslaughter.Jerry Nehl Boylan, of Santa Barbara, was named in the indictment by a federal grand jury that alleges Boylan, as the captain and master of the Santa Barbara-based Conception, “was responsible for the safety and security of the vessel, its crew, and its passengers.”The indictment alleges that Boylan caused the deaths of 33 passengers and one crewmember “by his misconduct…

In the past few years, the commercial use of facial recognition technology has advanced at an explosive rate, expanding into numerous industries and trades. For instance, facial biometrics is increasingly relied on by airlines and airports across the globe; a similar trend is starting to take hold in the maritime industry, particularly the cruise sector.While this expansion is occurring, states and cities across the country—as well as the federal government—are attempting to enact strict laws regulating the use of facial recognition technology by commercial entities.

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday declined to issue felony indictments against a group of Greenpeace USA activists who closed a key oil export waterway for 18 hours last year by tying themselves to a Houston bridge and dangling over the water.Felony charges had been brought against 31 activists involved in the September 2019 protest. The indictments, sought by the Harris County District Attorney's Office, were under Texas' new critical infrastructure law, which makes it a felony to interfere with oil and gas pipelines and ports…

An indictment of two Norwegian shipping executives was unsealed in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, the Department of Justice announced.Ingar Skiaker and Øyvind Ervik have been charged with participating in a long-running conspiracy to allocate certain customers and routes, rig bids, and fix prices for the sale of international ocean shipments of roll-on, roll-off cargo to and from the United States and elsewhere, including the Port of Baltimore. A federal grand jury returned the indictment in February 2018.Skiaker and Ervik…

Two more employees of Ripley Entertainment, Inc. – the company that operated duck boat rides in Branson, Missouri – along with the captain of the duck boat that sank at Table Rock Lake last summer, resulting in the deaths of 17 people, have been indicted by a federal grand jury.Curtis P. Lanham, 36, of Galena, Missouri, and Charles V. Baltzell, 76, of Kirbyville, Missouri, were charged in a 47-count superseding indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Springfield on Thursday, June 13.

A federal grand jury in Wilmington, Delaware, returned a six-count indictment today charging Chartworld Shipping Corporation, Nederland Shipping Corporation, and Chief Engineer Vasileios Mazarakis with failing to keep accurate pollution control records, falsifying records, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering, the Justice Department announced.The charges stem from the falsification of records and other acts designed to cover up from the Coast Guard the overboard discharges of oily mixtures and machinery space bilge water from the Bahamian-flagged cargo vessel…

Greece’s Chartworld Shipping Corporation(CSC)'s cargo vessel Nederland Reefer, its manager, owner and the chief engineer have been indicted for falsification of pollution records, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.A federal grand jury in Wilmington, Delaware, returned a six-count indictment charging CSC, Nederland Shipping Corporation, and Chief Engineer Vasileios Mazarakis, according to the U.S Department of Justice.The charges stem from the falsification of records and other acts designed to cover up from the Coast Guard the overboard discharges of oily mixtures and machinery space bilge water from the Bahamian-flagged cargo vessel, M/V Nederland Reefer.According to the indictment, on Feb.

A.P. Moller Maersk said on Tuesday a U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) investigation into the practices of container shipping companies had closed and the group was released from any obligations.In 2017, the DoJ ordered top executives from several container shipping lines including Maersk to testify in an antitrust investigation over practices by an industry that is the backbone of world trade."We are pleased to confirm that the United States Department of Justice has closed its…

The captain of the World War Two-style tourist "duck boat" that sank on a Missouri lake during a storm in July killing 17 people was charged on Thursday with misconduct, negligence and inattention to duty by a federal grand jury, prosecutors said.Kenneth Scott McKee, 51, of Verona, Missouri, was charged in a 17-count indictment, one count for each of the passengers who died when the vessel sank on July 19.McKee was captain of the vessel operated by Ripley Entertainment Inc, which ran duck boat tours in Branson…

The U.S. Justice Department announced a federal grand jury in Portland, Maine, returned a nine-count indictment today charging MST Mineralien Schiffarht Spedition Und Transport GmbH (MST) and Reederei MS “Marguerita” GmbH & Co. Geschlossene Investment KG (Reederei) with failing to keep accurate pollution control records and falsifying records. The charges stem from the falsification of records in 2016 and 2017 designed to cover up overboard discharges of oily mixtures and machinery space bilge water from the Liberian-flagged cargo vessel, M/V Marguerita. On at least eight occasions between September 2016 and June 2016, the M/V Marguerita entered United States waters and ports with a false and misleading Oil Record Book available for inspection by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Another ocean freight executive has been indicted for participation in a long-running conspiracy to restrain trade in international ocean shipments of roll-on, roll-off cargo to and from the Port of Baltimore and elsewhere in the United States, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday. A grand jury in the District of Maryland returned the indictment. Mauricio Javier Garrido Garcia (Garrido), an executive of Compañia Sudamericana de Vapores S.A. (CSAV) and resident of Chile, is charged with allocating customers and routes, rigging bids and fixing prices for international ocean shipments of roll-on, roll-off cargo, including cars, trucks and construction and agriculture equipment. Garrido is accused of participating in the conspiracy from as early as 2000 until at least September 2012.

A federal court ruled on Wednesday that BP well site leaders on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig cannot be charged with seaman's manslaughter in the deaths of eleven workers that died during the 2010 rig explosion because they were not seamen. A federal grand jury in Louisiana had indicted Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, the top ranking BP employees on the rig, with 23 counts, including 11 counts of seaman's manslaughter. The United States District Court for the Eastern District…

A federal grand jury in Mobile, Alabama, has returned a seven-count indictment charging Det Stavangerske Dampskibsselskab AS (DSD Shipping) and four employees with violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), conspiracy, obstruction of justice and witness tampering, announced Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden for the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and U.S. Attorney Kenyen R. Brown for the Southern District of Alabama. DSD Shipping is a Norwegian-based shipping company that operates the oil tanker M/T Stavanger Blossom, a vessel engaged in the international transportation of crude oil.

Norwegian firm Det Stavangerske Dampskibsselskab AS (DSD Shipping), and four of its employees, are now under three-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Lafayette, LA, all relating to alleged environmental crimes and their cover ups. The company was indicted in a US court on May 13 charged with obstructing justice and with environmental crimes. DSD Shipping is a Norwegian-based shipping company that operates the oil tanker M/T Stavanger Blossom, a vessel engaged in the international transportation of crude oil. The employees named in the indictment are four engineering officers employed by DSD Shipping to work aboard the vessel: Daniel Paul Dancu, 51, of Romania; Bo Gao, 49, of China; Xiaobing Chen, 34, of China; and Xin Zhong, 28, of China.

Three former executives of ocean freight shipping firms have been indicted for participating in a long-running price-fixing conspiracy, the U.S. Justice Department announced. The executives – Yoshiyuki Aoki, Masahiro Kato and Shunichi Kusunose – have been brought up on felony charges for allegedly allocating customers and routes, rigging bids and fixing prices for the sale of international ocean shipments of roll-on, roll-off cargo to and from the U.S. and elsewhere, including the Port of Baltimore. The affected cargo included cars, trucks, construction equipment and agricultural equipment.

A federal grand jury in Greenville, North Carolina, has returned a nine-count indictment charging two engineering officers employed by Oceanfleet Shipping Limited with crimes relating to the illegal discharge of oily wastes directly into the sea, announced Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden for the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and U.S. Attorney Thomas G. Walker for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Oceanfleet Shipping Limited is a Greek shipping company that operates the cargo carrier M/V Ocean Hope. The two engineering officers indicted are the vessel’s Chief Engineer, Rustico Yabut Ignacio; and Second Engineer, Cassius Flores Samson, bolth of the Philippines.