Scuba dive boat fire: Capt. Jerry Boylan sentenced to 4 years in federal prison
A U.S. District judge on Thursday sentenced Conception boat captain Jerry Boylan to four years in a federal prison, officials said.
Last year, a jury in Los Angeles found Boylan, 70, guilty of one count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer, an offense commonly called “seaman’s manslaughter," stemming from the 2019 dive boat fire that killed 34 off the coast of Ventura County.
The Santa Barbara-based dive boat caught fire and sank while anchored off Santa Cruz Island on Labor Day. One crew member and all 33 passengers on lower decks were killed, including Kendra Chan, of Oxnard. The 26-year-old was on the dive boat with her father, Scott Chan.
Boylan, of Santa Barbara, was one of five crew members sleeping on an upper deck who escaped and survived. Prosecutors say he could have prevented the deaths but committed a series of failures, including abandoning his ship instead of rescuing passengers.
Boylan, the first person to jump ship, didn’t do enough to fight the blaze, they said. The boat’s equipment included 50-foot hoses that can pump an unlimited amount of seawater. Boylan also failed to have a night watch or to train his largely inexperienced crew, according to the prosecutors.
"The stakes were life and death," the U.S. Attorney's Office wrote in its sentencing position filed with the court. "And yet defendant did nothing to keep his passengers and crew safe — in the days, weeks, months, and years leading up to the Labor Day Weekend trip, and on the night of the fire itself."
During opening statements last year, defense attorneys acknowledged that Boylan jumped off the ship after making a mayday call but said flames were 15-feet high and the wheelhouse had filled with smoke. Boylan, his second captain and a deckhand had reboarded the boat in the back, but all the fire equipment was inaccessible because of the flames, his attorneys said.
U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada called the disaster a "needless tragedy." The victims' families would be forever devastated, he said, according to a statement released Thursday.
“While today’s sentence cannot fully heal their wounds, we hope that our efforts to hold this defendant criminally accountable brings some measure of healing to the families," Estrada said.
A restitution hearing was scheduled for July 11.
USA TODAY contributed to this report.
Cheri Carlson covers the environment and county government for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at cheri.carlson@vcstar.com or 805-437-0260.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Dive boat Conception fire: Captain sentenced in deaths of 34
