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Defendant Jerry Boylan, the captain of the Conception, leaves federal court in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Richard Vogel/AP
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Richard Vogel/AP
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Defendant Jerry Boylan, the captain of the Conception, leaves federal court in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Richard Vogel/AP
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in Los Angeles on Thursday sentenced a scuba diving boat captain to four years in prison and three years of supervised release on criminal negligence charges after a fire on his vessel killed 34 people.
The fire that occurred on September 2, 2019, was the deadliest maritime disaster in recent U.S. history and prompted changes in maritime regulations, congressional reform, and several ongoing lawsuits.
Captain Jerry Boylan was found guilty last year on one count of misconduct or negligence by a ship's officer. The charge is a pre-Civil War statute known colloquially as seaman's murder. It was designed to capture steamship captains and crews responsible for maritime disasters.
![Coast Guard issues new safety rules in wake of 2019 boat fire that killed 34 people](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/01/08/ap22007779345398_sq-61d28d2b281e68d3ef6d224d8b6c4590f8121a68.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
In a passionate hearing, the family pleaded with U.S. District Judge George Wu to sentence Boylan to up to 10 years in prison. Many people cried, and Robert Kurtz, the father of Alexandra Kurtz, the only deckhand killed, brought a little courage to the lectern to address Boylan and the court.
“This is all I have about my daughter,” he said.
Yadira Alvarez was the mother of 16-year-old Berenice Felipe, who volunteered at an animal shelter and dreamed of becoming a marine biologist, and was the youngest of the 34 victims who died on the boat.
“He is not a victim. He is responsible for my daughter not being here,” Alvarez said, sobbing in court. “Can you imagine my pain?”
The Conception was anchored off Santa Cruz Island, 40 kilometers south of Santa Barbara. She caught fire before dawn on the last day of her three-day voyage, and she sank less than 100 feet (30 m) from the shore.
Thirty-three passengers and one crew member died after being trapped in a bunk room below deck. Among the dead was a deckhand who had landed his dream job. environmental scientist who conducted research in Antarctica; A couple traveling the world; Singapore Data Scientist; The family consists of three sisters, their father and his wife.
Boylan was the first to abandon ship and jump overboard. The four crew members who joined him also survived.
At the hearing, Boylan's lawyer read a statement aloud in court expressing condolences and said she had cried every day since the fire.
“We wish we could have brought everyone home safely,” the statement said. “I'm really sorry.”
Woo said Boylan's age, health, likelihood of relapse and need for deterrence and punishment were taken into consideration when determining the sentence.
He said Boylan's actions were reckless but sentencing guidelines did not warrant a 10-year sentence.
“This is not a situation where the defendant intended to do something bad,” Woo said.
The defense asked the judge to sentence Boylan to five years of probation and three years of house arrest.
Boylan's appeal continues.
Hank Garcia, whose son Daniel was among the victims, said he is not a vengeful person, but he and other family members hope something like this never happens again.
“We are all sentenced to life in prison,” he told the court. “We are being sentenced to life without the people we love.”
“While today’s sentencing cannot fully heal their wounds, we hope that our efforts to hold the defendant criminally accountable will bring some degree of healing to their families,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement.
Thursday's sentencing was the final step in a difficult prosecution that has lasted nearly five years and repeatedly frustrated the victims' families.
In 2020, a grand jury initially indicted Boylan on 34 counts of murdering the sailors, meaning he could face a total of 340 years in prison. Boylan's attorney argued that the death was the result of a single incident rather than an individual crime, so prosecutors filed a superseding indictment charging Boylan with only one count.
In 2022, Woo dismissed the superseding indictment, saying it did not specify that Boylan acted with gross negligence. Prosecutors had to return to the grand jury.
The exact cause of the fire on the Conception is not yet known, but prosecutors and defense attorneys worked to hold accountable throughout last year's 10-day trial.
The government said Boylan failed to deploy required rotating night patrols and failed to provide adequate training to firefighters. Because there were no roving lookouts, the fire was able to spread throughout the 75-foot (23-meter) boat undetected.
But Boylan's attorneys sought to place the blame on Glen Fritzler, who with his wife owns Truth Aquatics Inc., which operates the Conception and two other scuba diving boats around the Channel Islands, often around the Channel Islands. They claimed that Fritzler not only failed to train his crew in firefighting and other safety measures, but was also responsible for creating a lax culture of sailing, which they called the “Fritzler way,” in which the captains who worked for him also did not post circuit watches.
The Fritzlers have not spoken publicly about the tragedy since an interview with a local TV station a few days after the fire. Their attorney did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
As the criminal case comes to a close, attention is focused on the various lawsuits currently in progress.
Three days after the fire, Truth Aquatics filed suit under a provision of pre-Civil War maritime law that allows it to limit liability to the value of boat wreckage. Time-tested legal maneuvers have been successfully adopted by the owners of the Titanic and other ships, leaving the Fritzler to prove they were not at fault.
That case is pending, as is another case brought by the victim's family against the Coast Guard, who they say was lax in enforcing circuit watch requirements.
Susanna Solano, who lost her three daughters and father on the ship, said after Thursday's sentencing that she and other family members hoped the judge would hear their pleas.
“I was very disappointed,” she said. “It’s just heartbreaking.”