U.S. Coast Guard Prosecutors File Notice of Appeal In U.S.C.G. vs. Mark Stinziano. New Commandant Linda Fagan Will Decide Fate of Maersk Captain. Decision Expected in August 2022.
Linda Fagan.
New York, NY
By: MLAA
MLAA has learned that U.S. Coast Guard prosecutors have filed an official “Notice of Appeal” in the case of U.S. Coast Guard vs. Mark Steven Stinziano.
Lead Coast Guard prosecutor Jennifer Mehaffey will seek the permanent revocation of Captain Stinziano’s merchant mariner license on appeal, and will seek to overturn the four month suspension of Stinziano’s license that was handed down by Judge Michael Devine on April 20, 2022.
Against Stinziano, Judge Devine found proven 3 counts of assault and battery against a USMMA cadet as well as proven that Stinziano engaged in sexual harassment. The punishment of a four month suspension of Stinziano’s license has been widely seen throughout the maritime industry as shockingly and dangerously lenient.
Lead Prosecutor Jennifer Mehaffey has led the complex prosecution of Stinziano since before the U.S. Coast Guard issued its original Complaint against Stinziano on August 20, 2020. That Complaint charged Stinziano with five counts of misconduct, including five counts of abusive sexual contact, all federal sex crimes, as well as sexual harassment.
Mehaffey began her career as an attorney with the Coast Guard in 2009, and has been focused on Suspension & Revocation cases against mariners accused of misconduct since 2018. She has been assisted throughout the prosecution by LCDR Brett Sprenger, a career Coast Guard Investigator and the former Detachment Chief of the Suspension and Revocation National Center of Expertise in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
Appellate Briefs by U.S. Coast Guard prosecutors and Stinziano’s defense attorneys must be filed by June 20, 2022. Stinziano’s lawyer is William Hewig, an attorney at the firm of KP Law, and a specialist in the defense of men accused of heinous sex crimes. As part of his law practice, Hewig also serves as General Counsel to the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church. In that role he provides counsel to the church conference on all legal matters including, presumably, how to defend the church against victims of sexually predatory clergy members.
The Appeal will be heard by the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, who will work with attorneys in the Commandant’s office to issue a final and binding Commandant’s Order on Appeal in the case.
Admiral Karl Schultz, the current Commandant, has an atrocious record on the critical maritime safety issue of shipboard sexual misconduct. However, Admiral Schultz is set to retire from the Coast Guard on June 1, 2022 at a change of command ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Admiral Linda Fagan has been tapped by President Biden to replace Schultz, and to become the 27th Commandant at the change of command ceremony on June 1, 2022. Fagan appears to be a lock for Senate confirmation. In a recent Twitter post, Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee tweeted, “Biden has finally nominated an outstanding leader for the Coast Guard and it's important for the Commerce Committee to proceed efficiently so the Coast Guard is not left without a leader.”
If confirmed, Fagan would be the first woman to ever lead the U.S. Coast Guard. And if Fagan takes command on June 1, 2022, the Appellate Briefs for the Stinziano Appeal will hit her desk 3 weeks later.
Stinziano’s current suspension of his merchant mariner’s license is set to expire on August 20, 2022, giving Fagan 60 days from the time she receives the Appellate Briefs (June 20, 2022) until the time Stinziano is scheduled to be released back into the wild.
It is possible—possible—that Fagan issues her opinion on appeal within that 60 day period, and that Stinziano never again sets foot on a ship.
But absolutely anything is possible in this case that has now been dragging on for more than 7 years.
The U.S. maritime industry power structure has for years backed Stinziano and attempted to protect him. Those guilty of protecting and defending a known sexual predator—and continuing to send cadets to work for him aboard his vessel—include Maersk, the IOMMP, MARAD, and the USMMA.
Maersk and the IOMMP are still behind Stinziano, who is still employed by Maersk, and remains a member in good standing of the IOMMP, which is led by disgraced union leader Don Marcus, a notorious protector of sexual predators and an enabler of mass scale maritime sexual abuse.