There were nineteen passengers on board, including four minors Royal Caribbean Sea Symphony They are suing the cruise company and a former company employee, who placed hidden cameras in 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 are 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.
latest suit, Obtained by Fox News Digital, This 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 in a bathroom on the ship.
“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 Aronfield Trial Lawyers, who are representing 19 cruise ship passengers, told Fox News Digital.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Southern District of Florida, identifies Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and crew member Arvin Joseph Mirasol as defendants. Pictured is the Symphony of the Seas, the ship on which Marisol registered passengers without their knowledge. (Photo by Daniel Slim/AFP)
The new lawsuit alleges that during his time as a stateroom attendant Cruise line From December 2023 to February 2024, Mirasol “recorded a video camera containing a memory card in Plaintiffs’ passenger cabin bathrooms and took photographs of Plaintiffs while undressing and engaging in private activities,” without their knowledge or consent, adding that he then uploaded these photographs “to to third parties and/or to the World Wide Web, including, without limitation, 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 (Royal Caribbean's) cruise ships.”
There were a total of 26 sexual assault and rape Reported during Royal Caribbean cruises in 2023 Twenty-two 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. .
A man on vacation with his family goes to sea on a Norwegian cruise ship in the Bahamas
Arvin Joseph Mirasol was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison on Aug. 28, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida. (Broward County Jail)
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 suit.
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.
“Royal Caribbean failed to take adequate steps and/or provide adequate security, training and/or supervision to prevent such sexual assaults; Including video voyeurism“, occurring on board its cruise ships,” the lawsuit states, adding that the cruise line “also failed to warn its passengers of sexual assaults, including video voyeurism, occurring on board its cruise ships.”
The lawyers say the motive was “financial in nature,” explaining that Royal Caribbean “deliberately chose not to warn its passengers about sexual assaults, including video scenes, on board its cruise ships so as not to intimidate any potential travelers.”
Partial view of Royal Caribbean Cruise Limited's US cruise ship Symphony of the Seas. (Loic Finance/AFP via Getty Images)
As a result of Mirasol's crimes, his alleged victims “suffer extreme emotional distress, which manifests itself physically, causing physical illness, sweating, nausea, insomnia, dizziness, crying, and physical pain,” their lawyers wrote, adding that the former cruise passengers “live in constant fear.” “It is reasonable, under the circumstances, that images of plaintiffs nude while engaging in private activities are regularly viewed by others and used for illicit purposes.”
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Aronfeld's trial attorneys are demanding, on behalf of the alleged victims Trial by jury.
“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.
