Nineteen passengers, including four minors, who traveled on Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Sea ship are suing the cruise line and a former company employee, who placed hidden cameras in their guest rooms.
Arvin Joseph Mirasol, a Filipino citizen and former Royal Caribbean crew member named in the lawsuit filed Tuesday, was sentenced in August in Florida to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to producing child pornography.
The passengers, who were not named in the lawsuit and instead are referred to by abbreviations, are mostly American citizens from across the country, including New York, Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas, while many of the passengers are from Canada.
The latest lawsuit, obtained by Fox News Digital, comes months after a separate class-action lawsuit was filed against Mirasol and the Miami-based cruise line in October, alleging that as many as 960 people may have been victims of a hidden camera on one of the ships. Bathroom on board.
“This is an extraordinarily unusual case, where the number of victims could be approximately 1,000 or more men, women and children,” Spencer Aronfield of Aronfeld Trial Lawyers, who are representing the 19 cruise ship passengers, told Fox News Digital.
The new lawsuit alleges that during his tenure as a stateroom attendant on the cruise line from December 2023 through February 2024, Mirasol “recorded a video camera containing a memory card in Plaintiffs' passenger cabin bathrooms and took photographs of Plaintiffs while undressing and undressing.” Engaging in private activities,” without their knowledge or consent, adding that he then uploaded these images “to third parties and/or to the World Wide Web, including, but not limited to, the Dark Web.”
“For those whose images were recorded, uploaded online, and possibly sold on the dark web, this has caused deep emotional pain, sleepless nights and tearful days,” Aronfeld told Fox News Digital.
Lawyers for the alleged victims also say in the suit that Royal Caribbean “should have known that the sexual assaults were reasonably foreseeable given the prevalence of sexual assaults on the ship.” [Royal Caribbean’s] Cruise ships.”
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, according to the transportation secretary, documents continue.
Aggregate data shows allegations of sexual assault on cruise ships rose in 2023, with 131 sex crimes reported to the FBI on ships embarking and disembarking in the U.S. in 2023, up from 87 in 2022, lawyers wrote. .
In addition to the crimes committed on Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas, a hidden camera was installed in a public bathroom on the upper deck of another Royal Caribbean cruise ship – Harmony of the Seas – during a cruise that departed from Miami on April 29, 2023. The lawsuit.
The camera allegedly recorded more than 150 people, including at least 40 children, using the Royal Caribbean bathroom “in various stages of undress” until a passenger discovered the hidden camera on May 1, 2023, the lawyers wrote.
The lawsuit states that Royal Caribbean “failed to take adequate steps and/or provide adequate security, training and/or supervision to prevent such sexual assaults, including video voyeurism, from occurring on board its cruise ships,” adding that The cruise line also “failed to warn its passengers about sexual assaults, including voyeuristic videos, occurring aboard its cruise ships.”
The lawyers argue that the motive was “financial in nature,” explaining that Royal Caribbean “deliberately chose not to warn its passengers about sexual assaults, including voyeuristic video, on board its cruise ships so as not to intimidate any potential travelers.”
As a result of Mirasol's crimes, his alleged victims “suffer severe emotional distress, which manifests itself physically, causing… [them] “Physical sickness, sweating, nausea, insomnia, dizziness, crying, and physical pain,” their attorneys wrote, adding that the former cruise passengers “live in constant fear, reasonably under the circumstances, that Plaintiffs will be photographed naked while engaging in private activities.” They are regularly viewed by others and used for illicit purposes.”
Aronfield's trial attorneys, on behalf of the alleged victims, are demanding a jury trial.
“Our mission is to fully investigate this case on behalf of our clients and hold RCL accountable for failing to properly screen, hire, supervise and retain Mr. Mirasol,” Aronfeld told Fox News Digital.
“We are confident that the jury will have no problem returning 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.
