MLAA FILES FEDERAL LAWSUIT AGAINST THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD SEEKING 32 YEARS OF MARINER SEXUAL MISCONDUCT INVESTIGATION FILES, COURT RECORDS, AND SECRET SETTLEMENT AGREEMENTS

New York, NY

By: MLAA

     On Tuesday June 28, 2002 MLAA filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Coast Guard seeking records related to the Coast Guard’s enforcement of laws and regulations against sexual misconduct in the U.S. maritime industry.

     The suit is an action under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and seeks to enforce a FOIA request MLAA submitted to the Coast Guard two years ago on June 30, 2020.

     Over the course of 2 years the Coast Guard has refused to turn over records to MLAA in violation of the FOIA. In particular, the Coast Guard Administrative Law Judge (USCG-ALJ) court system has refused to turn over records related to the court’s use of secret settlement agreements with mariners who have been identified as predators. 

     The court, led by Chief ALJ Walter Brudzinski, has also refused to release to MLAA opinions and decisions of the ALJ judges that allowed convicted sex predators to continue working aboard vessels under the authority of their U.S. Coast Guard merchant mariner credential after serving extraordinarily lenient suspensions. 

     MLAA has previously written about some of these cases that have come to light through MLAA’s years-long investigation of the Coast Guard, and some of these cases were highlighted in the complaint MLAA has filed against the Coast Guard.

     In a now infamous case from 2019, Chief Judge Walter Brudzinski approved a highly controversial settlement agreement between an unlicensed mariner who subjected a USMMA deck cadet to weeks of shipboard sexual terror while serving as the Bosun of a Maersk Line, Limited containership.

     According to an investigation report released to MLAA by the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS), the mariner, who was in his 60’s, sexually harssed, sexually assaulted, stalked and terrorized the female deck cadet at sea, and then persisted in his unlawful behavior even after being warned to leave the cadet alone. The evidence against the mariner was so strong that Maersk Line fired him from his job.

     And yet, Chief Judge Walter Brudzinski signed a secret settlement agreement that allowed the mariner to serve only a 3 month suspension of his credential. After the 3 months ended, the mariner returned to the union hall and returned to working on ships where the USMMA and the State Maritime Academies send cadets to train.

     MLAA has determined the secret settlement agreements issued by Brudzinski and other judges to predatory mariners constitute “final agency decisions” for the purposes of the Administrative Procedures Act, and must therefore be proactively disclosed to the public. However, the USCG-ALJ has never proactively disclosed any of the secret settlement agreements and has also refused to release the agreements via the FOIA. 

      In another case from 2016, USCG-ALJ judge Bruce Tucker Smith approved a settlement agreement that levied only a one-month suspension against a USCG-credentialed ship captain who was convicted of a sex crime in Virginia state court. That settlement agreement, which also constituted a final agency decision, was also never proactively disclosed to the public as required by the Administrative Procedures Act. 

     In another case from 2018, a not-yet-identified USCG-ALJ judge issued a settlement agreement to a USCG-credentialed mariner who was convicted of sex crimes by the 184th District Court of Harris County, Texas. The conviction required the mariner to register as a sex offender under Texas’ statewide “Sex Offender Registry.” However, despite the known danger this mariner posed to residents of the state of Texas and to other mariners, the USCG-ALJ judge issued a settlement agreement to the mariner that created a path for him to obtain his unlimited tonnage merchant mariner’s license. The existence of the settlement agreement was never disclosed to the public as required by the Administrative Procedures Act. 

     Unfortunately, these 3 examples constitute only a small glimpse of a deeply disturbing pattern of leniency given to USCG-credentialed mariners who have been found to have engaged in sexual misconduct by Walter Brudzinski and his fellow USCG-ALJ judges.

     Most troubling to MLAA is the pattern of secrecy surrounding the USCG’s enforcement of laws and regulations against sexual misconduct committed by USCG-credentialed mariners. The secrecy and lack of transparency on the part of the USCG has prevented other USCG-credentialed mariners from knowing whether or not they are trapped on a ship with a sexual predator and has prevented mariners from knowing whether or not they are at a heightened risk of sexual assault at sea.

     Before MLAA began its investigation of the Coast Guard via the FOIA in 2020, the public had no knowledge of any of these cited cases, nor any knowledge of the many other cases MLAA has written about wherein the USCG gave extraordinarily lenient punishments to USCG-credentialed mariners who the USCG knew were sexual predators.

     Through its lawsuit against the Coast Guard, MLAA seeks to pierce the veil of administrative secrecy that surrounds these important issues, open USCG action to the light of public scrutiny, and eventually make the maritime workplace safer for hundreds of thousands of Americans.

    MLAA is represented in the lawsuit by Attorney J. Ryan Melogy of New York firm Maritime Legal Solutions, PLLC. In addition to representing MLAA in its lawsuit against the Coast Guard, Melogy is also representing MLAA in a lawsuit against the U.S. Maritime Administration. Melogy also represents numerous victims of maritime industry sexual harassment and sexual assault in civil actions against shipping companies and in the victims’ related criminal and administrative proceedings against the perpetrators of the crimes and sexual misconduct.