The cruise line was forced to make this confession as part of a lawsuit being brought against it by a former employee. When the ship made port in the U.S., she alleged that the company helped to transport the engineer to the airport, where he was flown to his native Italy and later arrested on rape charges. At first, the company said its shipboard employees had committed 62 sexual assaults aboard its vessels in a five-year period. A subsequent report increased that number to 108.
Carnival is based in Miami, Fla., but incorporated in Panama.
In the midst of the publicity storm spawned by Carnival's confessions, Carnival President Bob Dickinson issued a letter to U.S. travel agents that seems to be an attempt to minimize the apparent severity and scope of the crimes committed against passengers by employees of Carnival Cruise Lines. This is contradicted by several of the rape victims of Carnival employees, who have said they were discouraged from reporting the assaults upon them to U.S. authorities. Different victims told similar tales to New York Times reporter Douglas Frantz, who in 1998 wrote an extensive piece covering sex crimes aboard foreign-flag cruise ships. The cruise lines aggressively contest lawsuits and insist upon secrecy as a condition of settling. In fact, in 1995, cruise industry lawyers drafted legislation to restrict the liability of cruise lines in sexual assault cases.