Rape Charges Dropped in Cruise Line Case
LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors have dropped rape charges filed against two crew members of the Carnival Cruise Lines ship Elation when it returned to Los Angeles from a Mexican cruise earlier this month.
“After reviewing all the evidence in the case, we concluded it would not be appropriate to indict these two men,” U.S. attorney’s spokesman Thom Mrorek said Tuesday.
Crew members Desmond Abraham and Julio Cesar Delgado were accused of forcing themselves on two women passengers who were too intoxicated to rebuff their advances.
The women said Abraham and Delgado followed them into their darkened cabin and attacked them.
Abraham, a steward from Dominica in the West Indies, and Delgado, a bellman from Nicaragua, were immediately fired, and were arrested when the ship docked in San Pedro.
They told FBI agents and the ship’s captain that the women had kissed them, but they denied having sexual intercourse with them. A cruise ship doctor who examined the two women afterward reportedly found no evidence of rape.
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