Nineteen passengers aboard Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas, including four minors, are suing the cruise line and a former company employee for allegedly installing hidden cameras in their cabins.
Irvin Joseph Mirasol, a Filipino national and former Royal Caribbean crew member named in the lawsuit filed Tuesday, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in August after pleading guilty to producing child pornography in Florida. was sentenced.
Most of the passengers, who are not named in the lawsuit or are referred to by their abbreviations, are American citizens from all over the country, including New York, Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, and a few from Canada. There is.
The latest lawsuit, obtained by Fox News Digital, comes months after another class action lawsuit was filed against Mirasol and the Miami-based cruise line in October, alleging up to 960 people are accused of using hidden cameras on board their ships. He claims that he may have been a victim of. Bathroom on board.
“This is an extraordinary case in that the group of victims is close to 1,000 men, women and children, perhaps more than 1,000,” said Spencer Aaronfeld, a trial attorney at Aaronfeld who is representing 19 cruise ship passengers. “This is an unusual incident,” he told FOX News Digital.
Royal Caribbean cruise line sued over hidden cameras that may have filmed hundreds of passengers
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Southern District of Florida, names Royal Caribbean Cruises and crew member Irvin Joseph Mirasol as defendants. The photo is of the Symphony of the Seas, a ship that Marisol recorded without the passengers' knowledge. (Photo by Daniel Slim/AFP)
The new lawsuit alleges that while working as a flight attendant for a cruise line from December 2023 to February 2024, Mirasol “recorded videos with a video camera containing a memory card in the bathroom of the plaintiffs' cabins and removed their clothing.” “I took images of the plaintiffs undressing.” The web added that he engaged in personal activities “without the person's knowledge or consent” and then uploaded these images to “third parties and/or the World Wide Web, including but not limited to the Dark Side.” . ”
“For those whose images may be recorded, uploaded to the internet, and sold on the dark web, this is creating deep mental anguish, sleepless nights, and tearful days,” Aaronfeld said. told FOX News Digital.
Lawyers for the alleged victims also said in the lawsuit that Royal Caribbean “should have known that the sexual assault was reasonably foreseeable, given the prevalence of sexual assault on board its ships.” “It was,” he claims. [Royal Caribbean’s] cruise ship. ”
According to the Secretary of Transportation, a total of 26 sexual assaults and rapes were reported during Royal Caribbean cruises in 2023, and 22 sexual assaults were reported during Royal Caribbean cruises in 2022, the document states. It continues.
Overall data shows sexual assault charges on cruise ships increased in 2023, with 131 sex crimes reported to the FBI on boarding and disembarking ships in the U.S. in 2023 and 2022. This is an increase from 87 cases in 2017, the lawyers wrote.
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Ervin Joseph Mirasol was sentenced on August 28 to 30 years in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida. (Broward County Jail)
In addition to the crimes that took place on Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas, a crime was committed on the top deck of another Royal Caribbean cruise ship, Harmony of the Seas, which departed from Miami on April 29, 2023. A hidden camera was also installed in a public toilet. According to the complaint.
The camera showed more than 150 people, including at least 40 children, using Royal Caribbean's bathrooms and “in various stages of undress” until the hidden camera was discovered by a passenger on May 1, 2023. , the lawyers wrote.
The complaint states that Royal Caribbean “failed to take appropriate steps and provide adequate security, training, and supervision to prevent sexual assaults, including video voyeurism, from occurring onboard cruise ships.” The same goes for the company, he added. “Failure to warn passengers about sexual assaults, including video voyeurism, occurring on cruise ships.”
Lawyers argue that the motive behind this is “financial in nature” and that Royal Caribbean “has no sexual relations, including video voyeurism, onboard cruise ships to avoid scaring future passengers.” “They deliberately chose not to warn passengers about the assault.”
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Partial view of Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited's tourist ship Symphony of the Seas. (LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images)
As a result of Mirasol's crimes, his alleged victims “suffer severe psychological distress, which manifests physically; [them] “Feeling unwell, sweating, nausea, insomnia, dizziness, crying, and physical pain,” the lawyers wrote, adding that the former cruise travelers “understandably under the circumstances found that the plaintiffs were engaged in private activities. “I live in constant fear of images of me taking my clothes off while I'm there.” It is regularly viewed by others and used for illegal purposes. ”
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Lawyers in the Aronfeld trial are demanding a jury trial on behalf of the alleged victims.
“Our mission is to thoroughly investigate this incident on behalf of our client and to hold RCL accountable for failing to properly vet, hire, supervise and retain Mr. Mirasol,” Aaronfeld told FOX. He told News Digital. “We are confident that the jury will have no trouble reaching a substantive verdict in favor of the victims.”
Royal Caribbean International did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Fox News Digital's Christina Coulter contributed to this report.
