Haitian Boat Captains Jailed
September 9, 2010
CaribWorldNews, MIAMI, FL, Thurs. Sept. 9, 2010: Two Haitian boat captains will spend a total of 27-and-a-half years in jail for a failed migrant smuggling operation that resulted in the deaths of nine Haitian nationals and an unborn baby.
Jimmy Metellus, 34, and Jean Morange Nelson, alias Jean Monique Nelson, 33, were this week sentenced in connection with the May 13, 2009 accident that happened in waters off Palm Beach County`s shore.
Metellus pleaded guilty to 13 counts of alien smuggling and placing in jeopardy the lives of aliens, that resulted in death, as part of a plea agreement in June. He will serve 14 and a-half-years in jail, down from a life sentence.
According to court records and witness testimony, defendants Metellus and Nelson were the two of the captains of the migrant smuggling vessel that sank off the Palm Beach county coast during the morning of May 13, 2009. Nelson, Metellus and two other captains left the Bahamas on May 9, 2009, on a boat with migrants bound for the U.S. The boat began to have mechanical problems and was adrift for three days. Associates of the smugglers arranged for fuel to be delivered to the boat, and guided it to a house in Bimini, Bahamas. In Bimini, the migrants were allegedly taken off the vessel while the boat was repaired.
The next night, the migrants were reloaded on the boat, and the boat departed for the U.S. A Good Samaritan reported to the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) seeing people in the water approximately 16 miles east of Palm Beach County, Fla., in the early morning hours of May 13, 2009.
After a massive search and rescue operation conducted by the USCG, CBP Air and Marine Interdiction Agents, CBP U.S. Border Patrol, the Palm Beach Sheriff`s Office, Palm Beach Fire and Rescue, and the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner`s Office, 16 survivors, including Metellus and Nelson, and 10 deceased were identified as having been on the boat. The 10 deceased migrants included one adult male, seven adult females, one infant, and one unborn viable fetus. None of the survivors had visas or other travel documentation for admission into the U.S., nor were any such documents found in the nearby waters.
`I am very sad today,` Metellus told the judge through a translator at his sentencing. `I apologize for what happened. Poverty and a lack of employment drove me to seek a better life. It is painful for me to put my parents in this predicament. I will always remember what happened and hope my children will learn from it.`
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