Captain gets four years in federal prison for 2019 boat fire that killed 34 people
Prosecutors wanted a 10-year sentence for Jerry Boylan, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter last November for the fatal Conception fire.
A former boat captain was sentenced Thursday to four years in federal prison for the deaths of 34 people in a fire during a Labor Day weekend diving trip.
In a letter read aloud by his attorney, Jerry Nehl Boylan said he’s “cried every day” since the Sept. 2, 2019, fatal fire on the Conception boat off the coast of Santa Barbara, and “not an hour goes by” without him thinking of the victims and their families.
“I wish I could have brought everyone home safe,” 70-year-old Boylan wrote.
Prosecutors wanted Boylan to serve 10 years in prison for his involuntary manslaughter conviction, but U.S. District Judge George Wu said Boylan’s actions warranted less time because he didn’t mean to hurt anyone and is “incredibly remorseful.”
“This is not a situation where the defendant intended to do something bad,” Wu said, calling Boylan’s sentencing the most difficult of his career.
Wu also rejected prosecutors’ and the U.S. Probation Office’s finding that Boylan abused a position of trust by abandoning the victims after learning of the fire. The judge said no crew member testified Boylan abandoned the boat without first trying to do something; instead, Boylan stayed in the wheelhouse to call the U.S. Coast Guard, and one crew member thought he was on fire when he fled.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Willams said Boylan’s failure to train his crew and conduct “roving patrols” to detect nighttime fires was “such an obvious risk” and what “makes this conduct so extreme.” (Meghann’s note: This has been updated to correct the identification of the prosecutor.)
Wu said it was “like running a red light. Nobody ever does it,” and Willams replied it was akin to “speeding through a red light with a bus full of children — 34 people in your care.”
“If that bus is floating in the middle of the ocean with no rescue coming,” Willams said. “So, Your Honor, that analogy does not apply.”
Willams also corrected the judge after he said a crew member tried to use a firehose, reminding him that the crew member first ran by the hose on two occasions amid the untrained “chaos.”
A cellphone video from the bunk room that was key evidence in trial shows passengers alive at 3:17 a.m. — three minutes after Boylan’s mayday call and two to three minutes after he jumped overboard.
Boylan’s 48-month prison sentence, which includes three years probation after he’s released, upset many of the victims’ family members who filled Wu’s Los Angeles courtroom gallery for the 3 1/2-hour hearing.
“What was the f—-ing point of that?” one woman asked outside court, referring to her victim impact statement.
Judge Wu declined prosecutors’ request that Boylan be remanded to custody immediately, and he declined to make Boylan surrender to custody next week, instead saying he’ll schedule a surrender date after a July 11 restitution hearing.
Wu sentenced Boylan after hearing from nearly 20 family members of the victims, including Robert Kurtz, whose daughter, 26-year-old Allie Kurtz, was the crew member who died with the 33 passengers. He demanded Boylan look at him before he described his daughter’s accomplishments, goals and personality.
“You looking away shows no remorse to me right now,” said Kurtz, who brought his daughter’s ashes to the courtroom.
As Boylan continued staring ahead, Wu said, “I’m not going to order him to look anywhere.”
Deputy Federal Defender Georgina Wakefield said Boylan sleeps only 1 1/2 hours a night on a mattress he set on the floor of his living room “so that he can escape if there is a fire.”
“He sleeps better during the day but still wakes up every 30 minutes,” Wakefield said.
A photo of the Conception hangs above his bed as “a constant reminder of what happened,” and Boylan “rarely leaves the house.”
“He doesn’t talk to anyone. He cries. He has nightmares and flashbacks and panic attacks. He shakes and cannot calm himself down,” Wakefield said.
“If he hears someone saying something nice about him, like the letters we submitted, he breaks down crying because he doesn’t think he deserves it,” she continued. When Boylan learned a family member discussed forgiving him, “he broke down. He didn’t think forgiveness was available to him.”
“No matter what settings the court imposes today, Mr. Boylan will always punish himself more,” Wakefield said.
Many family members who attended the nine-day trial last fall spoke on Thursday, including the mother of 16-year-old victim Berenice Felipe. She sobbed as she spoke of her grief and told Wu, “10 years doesn’t do it for me.” She also spoke of a disconnect between the victims’ grief and the court system, tearfully telling the judge that while she was told to stop crying during testimony, Boylan “was crying in front of the jurors and nobody tell him nothing.”
After the hearing, Martin Estrada, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a press conference that “certainly, four years is not what we wanted.”
“We thought the appropriate sentence was 10 years in this case. But the sentence is determined by the judge, and we will respect that process,” Estrada said.
James Adamic said after sentencing that Boylan’s statement angered him because it was “not an admission of responsibility.”
“It was that he felt sadness or loss. Who doesn’t? He never once said I was wrong,” said Adamic, whose sister, Diane Salika-Adamic; brother-in-law Steve Salika, and niece, Tia Salika-Adamic, died on the Conception.
Boylan’s case is one of the first prosecutions in the United States under the seaman’s manslaughter statute. The original indictment charged Boylan with 34 counts, one for each death, but Judge Wu dismissed it and prosecutors secured a new indictment for a single count.
The U.S. Probation Office joined prosecutors in recommending a 10-year prison sentence. The sentence is based on an offense level under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines that includes a five-point addition for the loss of life. Federal law doesn’t allow the addition to account for more than five deaths, so prosecutors and probation recommended Wu depart upward from their calculated standard range of 87 months to 108 months to get Boylan to 120 months.
In a 29-page sentencing memo, prosecutors wrote that “given the scale of death and devastation caused by defendant’s recklessness and misconduct, this is that unusual case.”
“The stakes were life and death. And yet defendant did nothing to keep his passengers and crew safe -- in the days, weeks, months, and years leading up to the Labor Day Weekend trip, and on the night of the fire itself,” according to the memo from Willams and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brian Faerstein, Matthew O’Brien and Juan Rodriguez.
Boylan’s defense team asked for probation and three years of home confinement, which would have been a downward departure from the 37 months to 46 months they said was his standard range under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. The 37 months to 46 months did not factor in the abuse of trust enhancement prosecutors said Boylan deserved, which Judge Wu agreed should not apply because he doesn’t believe Boylan abandoned the boat. Wu settled on a guideline range with a low end of 57 months, then downward departed to get to 48 months.
The defense sentencing memo blamed Boylan’s employer, Truth Aquatics, for never requiring a roving patrol.
“The undisputed evidence shows that no captain on any Truth Aquatics boat, or any other local boat for that matter, posted a roving patrol at night,” according to the memo from Wakefield and Deputy Federal Defenders Julia Deixler, Gabriela Rivera and Joshua Weiss. “The terrible reality is that the devastating loss of life that occurred on the Conception on September 2, 2019, could have occurred on any other Santa Barbara dive boat, regardless of who the captain was.”
Wakefield is leaving the Federal Public Defender’s Office to work at former U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson’s firm, Larson LLP, which is currently defending Truth Aquatics and its owner, Glen Fritzler, against wrongful death claims.
Wakefield in March asked Judge Wu to appoint her to represent Boylan at sentencing. Prosecutors alerted Wu to the fact that Wakefield was joining the firm defending Fritzler.
“As the Court may recall, the central thrust of the defense at trial was to blame Fritzler for the 34 fatalities,” according to a March 22 filing. “Hence it appears to the government that defendant and Fritzler would be considered to be adverse parties in a conflict-of-interest analysis.”
Chief Deputy Federal Public Defender Amy Karlin said in a declaration that she “determined that there is no conflict of interest precluding Ms. Wakefield from continuing to represent Mr. Boylan at the sentencing hearing on May 2, 2024.”
“Ms. Wakefield will not have commenced her employment at Larson, LLP at that time,” Karlin wrote.
In a March 27 order, Wu said Wakefield’s appointment “is contingent upon Defendant Boylan’s signing a waiver of any actual or potential conflicts that may arise from Ms. Wakefield’s imminent (but post May 7, 2024) joining the Larson, LLP law firm, which represents Glen Fritzler.”
The 34 victims were:
Carol Diana Adamic, 60, of Santa Cruz
Tia Salika-Adamic, 17, of Santa Cruz
Neal Gustav Baltz, 42, of Phoenix, Arizona
Patricia Ann Beitzinger, 48, of Phoenix, Arizona
Vaidehi Campbell, 41, of Felton
Kendra Chan, 26, of Oxnard
Raymond “Scott”Chan, 59, of Los Altos
Andrew Fritz, 40, of Sacramento
Daniel Garcia, 46, of Berkeley
Justin Carroll Dignam, 58, of Anaheim
Marybeth Guiney, 51, of Santa Monica
Yulia Krashennaya, 40, of Berkeley
Alexandra Kurtz, 26, of Santa Barbara
Charles McIlvain, 44, of Santa Monica
Caroline McLaughlin, 35, of Oakland
Angela Rose Quitasol, 28, of Stockton
Evan Michel Quitasol, 37, of Stockton
Nicole Storm Quitasol, 31, of Imperial Beach
Michael Quitasol, 62, of Stockton
Steven Salika, 55, of Santa Cruz
Ted Strom, 62, of Germantown, Tennessee
Wei Tan, 26, of Goleta
Adrian Dahood-Fritz, 40, of Sacramento
Lisa Fiedler, 52, of Mill Valley
Kristina “Kristy” Finstad, 41, of Santa Cruz
Fernisa Sison, 57, of Stockton
Kristian Takvam, 34, of San Francisco.
Juha Pekka Ahopelto, 50, of Sunnyvale
Berenice Felipe, 16, of Santa Cruz
Xiang Lin, 45, of Fremont
Sanjeeri DeoPujari (Nirmal), 31, of Stamford, Connecticut
Sumil Sandhu, 45, of Half Moon Bay
Kaustubh Nirmal, 33, of Stamford, Connecticut
Yuko Hatano, 39, of San Jose
Court documents:
Boylan’s support letters part 1 (138 pages)
Defense’s opposition to the pre-sentence report
Judge Wu’s order rejecting new trial
Past coverage:
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Corrupt, doddering Judge Wu makes me ashamed to be Chinese American. This light sentencing was absolutely wrong. My heart hurts deeply for the victims' families of this tragedy who deserved justice.