Cruise ship passengers from across US sue after worker sentenced for placing hidden cameras in guest rooms
Nineteen passengers, including four minors, who cruised on board Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Sea are suing the cruise line and a former company employee, who placed hidden cameras in their guest rooms.
Arvin Joseph Mirasol, a citizen of the Philippines and former Royal Caribbean crew member named in the lawsuit filed on Tuesday, was sentenced in August in Florida to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to producing child pornography.
The passengers, who were not named in the lawsuit and rather referred to by abbreviations, are mostly American citizens from all across the country, including New York, Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas, while several passengers are from Canada.
The latest suit, obtained by Fox News Digital, 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 board.
"This is an extraordinarily unusual case in that the pool of victims can be nearly 1,000 or more men, women and children," Spencer Aronfeld with Aronfeld Trial Lawyers, who represent the 19 cruise ship passengers, told Fox News Digital.
The new lawsuit alleges that during his time working as a stateroom attendant on the cruise line from December 2023 through February 2024, Mirasol "taped a video camera containing a memory card in the Plaintiffs’ passenger cabin bathrooms and captured images of the Plaintiffs while undressed and engaging in private activities," without their knowledge or consent, adding that he then uploaded these images "to third parties and/or to the world wide web, including, but not limited to, the dark web."
"For those who had their images recorded, uploaded on the internet and potentially sold on the dark web – this has created deep emotional pain, sleepless nights and tearful days," Aronfeld told Fox News Digital.
Lawyers for the alleged victims also argue in the suit that Royal Caribbean "should have known sexual assaults were reasonably foreseeable considering the prevalence of sexual assaults aboard [Royal Caribbean's] cruise ships."
There were a total of 26 sexual assaults and rapes reported during Royal Caribbean cruises in 2023, and 22 sexual assaults reported during Royal Caribbean cruises in 2022, according to the Secretary of Transportation, the documents continue.
Overall data shows that sexual assault allegations on cruise ships rose in 2023, with 131 sex crimes reported to the FBI on ships embarking and disembarking in the United States in 2023, up from 87 in 2022, lawyers wrote.
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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 top deck of another Royal Caribbean cruise ship – Harmony of the Seas – during a cruise which left Miami on April 29, 2023, according to the lawsuit.
The camera allegedly recorded more than 150 people, including at least 40 children, using the Royal Caribbean bathroom "in various stages of undress" until the hidden camera was discovered by a passenger on May 1, 2023, lawyers wrote.
Royal Caribbean "failed to take adequate steps and/or provide adequate security and/or training and/or supervision to prevent such sexual assaults, including video voyeurism, to occur aboard its cruise ships," the lawsuit states, adding that the cruise line also "failed to warn its passengers of sexual assaults, including video voyeurism, occurring aboard its cruise ships."
Lawyers argue that the motive behind this was "financial in nature," explaining that Royal Caribbean "willfully chooses not to warn its passengers about sexual assaults, including video voyeurism, aboard its cruise ships so as not to scare any prospective passengers away."
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As a result of Mirasol's crimes, his alleged victims "suffer from severe emotional distress, which manifests physically, causing [them] physical sickness, sweating, nausea, insomnia, dizziness, crying, and physical pain," their attorneys wrote, adding that the former cruise travelers "live in constant fear, reasonably under the circumstances, that images of the Plaintiffs undressed while engaging in private activities are regularly viewed by others and used for illicit purposes."
Aronfeld Trial Lawyers, on behalf of the alleged victims, are demanding trial by jury.
"Our mission is to fully investigate this case on behalf of our clients and hold RCL accountable for failing to properly vet, hire, supervise and retain Mr. Mirasol," Aronfeld told Fox News Digital. "We have confidence that the jury will have no problem returning a substantial 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.