A former passenger on board a Royal Caribbean cruise filed a lawsuit against the company saying that the cruise line could have done more to do more to protect passengers.
Earlier this year, Arvin Mirasol, a stateroom attendant, was arrested after a passenger said she found a camera inside her room’s bathroom on the Symphony of the Seas, WTVJ reported.
The guest was grabbing a roll of toilet paper and said she found the camera stuck to the counter, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said in an affidavit.
Mirasol in an interview with law enforcement allegedly admitted to installing the cameras and had been doing so since December 2023 when he started working on the ship.
Officials also found several videos of women undressing in bathrooms and child pornography on his electronic devices. One video showed him installing a camera, officials said, according to WTVJ. Mirasol told law enforcement that he would hide under stateroom beds while guests took showers and recorded them.
Officials said he also posted images online and on the dark web, WFOR reported.
He was convicted and sentenced last month to 30 years in federal prison, according to Fox News. He also still faces video voyeurism charges in Florida, USA Today reported.
The cruise company said in a statement at the time of Mirasol’s arrest, “We have zero tolerance for this unacceptable behavior. We immediately reported this to law enforcement and terminated the crew member, and we will continue to fully cooperate with authorities.”
The class action lawsuit against Royal Caribbean was filed on Tuesday in Miami’s federal court, WTVJ reported last week.
The suit was filed on behalf of “Jane Doe” and “all other similarly situated passengers,” USA Today reported.
Michael Winkleman, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, said, “This is already a known industry problem and not just hidden cameras being an issue and it’s happened on virtually every other cruise line but also rapes and sexual assaults at sea.”
He contends the company is partially to blame.
“I think Royal Caribbean had a moral obligation to notify all the passengers that likely could’ve been affected they didn’t do that, now the notice is out there,” Winkleman said.
He thinks that nearly a thousand passengers may have been recorded from Dec. 1, 2023, until Feb. 26, 2024, when Mirasol was employed on the Symphony of the Seas.
Winkleman said that a video camera was found in a public bathroom on another Royal Caribbean ship and that a passenger had been arrested in that case, USA Today reported.
The woman who filed the lawsuit said that she “suffers from severe emotional distress, which manifests physically, causing the Plaintiff physical sickness, sweating, nausea, insomnia, dizziness, crying, and physical pain, thereby causing physical impact to the Plaintiff,” WFOR reported.
Royal Caribbean issued a statement to USA Today in light of the class action lawsuit, writing in an email, “The safety and privacy of our guests is our highest priority, and we have zero tolerance for this behavior. We immediately reported this case to law enforcement and terminated the crew member. As this is pending litigation, we are unable to comment further at this time.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and requests a jury trial.
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