Two men charged in fatal Hudson River boating accident

Two New Jersey men who owned a 25-foot boat that capsized in the Hudson River, killing two people, including a 7-year-old boy, were arrested Thursday and charged with Prosecutors say misconduct and negligence caused the deaths.

The men, Richard Cruz and Jaime Pinilla Gomez, took paying customers on boat rides on the ship despite lacking the required credentials and certifications, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said. Mr. Cruz charged about $200 an hour for the tours, prosecutors said.

When the boat capsized, prosecutors said, there were more people on board than allowed and the boat was traveling “at high speed” on a day of high winds and heavy seas.

The ship, named “Stimulus Money,” was carrying 13 people after a tour around the Statue of Liberty on July 12, 2022, when it overturned and threw all the passengers overboard, according to a criminal complaint. Lindelia Vasquez, 47, and Julian Vasquez, 7, were trapped under the boat and drowned, the complaint said. Several others, including a 51-year-old woman, were hospitalized.

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement Thursday that federal regulations and safety protocols are in place to protect passengers.

“The defendants are alleged to have ignored these regulations, recklessly disregarded safety protocols, operated the vessel at an unsafe speed in dangerous conditions and overloaded the vessel with too many passengers on board,” he said. “And the outcome was tragic: a young boy and a woman became trapped under the ship and drowned after the ship capsized.”

Mr. Cruz and Mr. Gomez were each charged with misconduct and neglect of a ship’s officer resulting in death, which prosecutors said carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

A lawyer for Mr. Cruz, Kristoff Williams, with the Federal Defenders of New York, declined to comment on the allegations Thursday evening. A lawyer for Mr. Gomez, Thomas H. Nooter, also had no comment.

A sign at the helm of Stimulus Money stated that the ship’s maximum capacity was 12 people, prosecutors said.

Under regulations, a ship carrying more than six passengers can only be operated if it has undergone a valid inspection, prosecutors said. The boat’s owner and captain, 32-year-old Cruz, had purchased the vessel about three months earlier and never requested or received proper inspections, they said.

Mr. Gomez, 25, who was piloting the boat, had “insufficient experience” and operated it in a “dangerous manner, including rapidly accelerating one of the vessel’s engines just before capsizing,” prosecutors said.

On the summer day when the boat capsized, a small craft advisory was in effect for New York Harbor at the mouth of the Hudson River, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s New York office. According to the group, there were wind gusts of 15 to 20 kilometers per hour.

According to the complaint, after the tour, the ship was traveling north on the Hudson River on its way back to Carteret, NJ, and capsized just north of Pier 79 in Midtown Manhattan.

Captain Anthony Ryan, of the New York Waterway ferry company, was preparing to depart the dock on his boat, Garden State, for its afternoon route when he was alerted to the emergency.

The scene he saw, he said days later in an interview, was one he would never forget.

“We see people waving their arms and they were in distress,” he said at the time. “They were panicking, they were scared.” He said he heard shouts in Spanish, “and just a lot of shouting.”

Ms. Vasquez had lived in Elizabeth, N.J., for about 20 years, having moved there from Medellín, Colombia, a niece, Lina Vasquez, said in an interview shortly after her aunt’s death. Police said at the time that both victims were of Colombian descent; it was unclear whether they were related.

Lindelia Vasquez worked as a manager at Kanela’s Lounge, a restaurant and catering venue in downtown Elizabeth, and had a cheerful, managerial personality, her niece said. She had three children – two young adults and a teenager – who were in the boat with her and survived.