PART ONE: U.S. Coast Guard vs. Stinziano—“The Initial Report, February 3, 2015”
New York, NY
By: MLAA
In this series (USCG vs. Stinziano) MLAA explores the more than 7 year history of the most high profile and controversial shipboard sexual misconduct case in U.S. Coast Guard history.
On the morning of February 3, 2015 the M/V Maersk Idaho, an American-flag containership operated by Maersk Line, Limited, docked in the port of Genova, Italy.
2nd Mate J. Ryan Melogy had boarded the vessel in New York, spent 70 days aboard the Idaho, and was being relieved by the permanent 2nd Mate that morning.
That morning, his last aboard the vessel, and while still a crew member, Melogy delivered a Report to Captain Paul Willers, the master of the M/V Maersk Idaho. The Report concerned the behavior of the Idaho’s Chief Mate, a senior member of the Masters, Mates & Pilots labor union named Mark Stinziano.
That Report contained at least four separate allegations of criminal sexual assault against Stinziano that Melogy had either personally experienced or witnessed.
After receiving Melogy’s Report and reading it, Willers told Melogy that he was “shocked” by the allegations contained in the Report. Willers had joined the vessel only about one week earlier, and had not been aboard the vessel during the time when most of the behavior and incidents contained in Melogy’s Report had occurred. Willers also told Melogy that he would “have to conduct an investigation.” Willers told Melogy he should expect to be contacted by Maersk regarding his Report, and Melogy replied that he looked forward to speaking with Maersk about the Report.
Then, Melogy signed off the vessel, walked down the gangway, and disappeared into Europe. He was never contacted by Maersk or the U.S. Coast Guard regarding the Report he delivered to Captain Willers and Maersk.
The Report (word-for-word):
Behavior of Chief Officer Mark Stinziano and Creation of Hostile Work Environment
The Chief Mate speaks about sex, rape, sexual violence, pedophilia (or “kid touching” as he calls it) almost constantly. These topics ooze from him and made me deeply uncomfortable to be around at any time.
I am not a prude, and I am not judging his conduct by “shore side” standards that might apply in a typical office setting. I am judging his conduct by the very loose and profane standards of men at sea on ships, and even by those standards his conduct is outrageously inappropriate, unprofessional, and abusive.
The Chief Mate describes a noticed decline in my shipboard performance “post Aqaba.” In fact, the decline in my shipboard performance and my attitude towards the Chief Mate and the ship began in earnest at Salalah, Oman after the Chief Mate touched me in an inappropriate sexual manner while conducting a lifeboat lowering exercise while our ship was moored to the pier conducting cargo operations.
As the lifeboat was being lowered to the water, I was sitting next to the Chief Mate and we were both strapped in to safety belts. This is an extremely dangerous operation and the threat of the lifeboat falling and killing you is in the mind of anyone in this situation. Halfway down to the water he reached over and placed his hand on my upper thigh just inches away from my penis, and then looked at me and said something about how “we’re trapped in here now.” It was a very sexually aggressive and disturbing event, and I was in something like a state of shock.
Several days later, while I was standing at the bridge computer, the Chief Mate came onto the bridge and slapped me upwards in between my legs, striking my anus and genitals. He said “Oh, got a good one there!” I began to understand that he was trying to see how far he could push his touching and sexual intimidation of me, and I gave him a look that I thought made it very clear that I was not amused and that he should not touch me ever again. It took a great deal of restraint on my part to resist the strong urge to use violence to defend myself against this predator.
After that day, every time the door to the bridge would open while I was standing at the bridge computer I would be afraid that it was the Chief Mate and that he was going to sexually assault me again.
I struggled deeply with how to respond to his deeply sexually offensive and intimidating behavior. I wanted it to end, but the Chief Mate seemed to have the full support of the Captain, and the Captain seemed aware of much of the extent of the Chief Mate’s inappropriate behavior. At dinner one night towards the end of the trip Captain McHugh remarked at the dinner table “Well you know the Chief Mate’s standard greeting on the telephone is ‘What are you wearing? hahaha.”
And that was the Chief Mate’s standard greeting on the telephone, which I had to hear and be asked numerous times.
A typical phone call would begin:
Me: “Bridge, Second Mate”
Chief Mate: “Heyyy, soooo, Whacha wearin’?”
Me: “What can I do for you Mate?”
Having my boss ask me what I’m wearing was very unpleasant, humiliating, and infuriating.
I feared being punished or fired for speaking up about the Chief Mate’s behavior, and given that he had the support of the Captain, did not know where I could turn.
Treatment of Cadets aboard Maersk Idaho
Treatment that I personally suffered on the Maersk Idaho pales in comparison to the abusive treatment suffered by the cadets, specifically the deck cadet, on board the vessel.
I attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, sailed for 1 year as a cadet aboard various ships and know hundreds of other USMMA graduates who have sailed as cadets. I have never seen or heard of a cadet being treated as unacceptably and abusively as the deck cadet [REDACTED] has been treated aboard the Maersk Idaho.
Cadet [REDACTED]’s “STCW Records of Hours of Rest” (ATTACHED) is full of inaccurate and fraudulent entries which overall dramatically understate the hours that Cadet [REDACTED] has been required to work, and dramatically overstate the hours of rest that he has been allowed. Cadet [REDACTED] has been made to work in excess of 16 hours in a 24 hour period on numerous occasions, and on several occasions has worked more than 20 hours in 24 hour periods.
I have seen him dizzy with exhaustion on several occasions when he was required by the Chief Mate to work many more hours than even I was working. I believe that the Deck Cadet was frequently required to work more hours than any other crew member on the ship, with the possible exception of the Chief Mate himself.
He has not been given enough time to complete his sea projects, he has not been given set working hours, his time has not been respected, and he has been treated as the personal property of the Chief Mate, on call to do anything the Chief Mate wants him to do at any time.
On top of this abusive work load, Cadet [REDACTED] has been sexually harassed, intimidated, and in cases suffered from conduct that could be considered sexual abuse at the hands of the Chief Mate.
I found the Chief Mate’s treatment of Cadet [REDACTED] and at times the Engine Cadet [REDACTED] to be nauseating — sickening.
Examples of Conduct:
The Chief Mate said to me several times that “Cadets are not People.” If he had said it once, I might have dismissed it as a joke, but he repeated the statement on several occasions, and I do believe that statement reflects his actual philosophy on how he treat cadets that serve under him.
The Chief Mate repeated to me, or within my hearing, dozens of threatening statements about “Raping” the Cadet. He seems to have a fixation with the idea of rape generally, and raping the cadet specifically. He would talk about “raping the cadet” on an almost daily basis. It became truly disturbing. The Chief mate would boast to me his of threats to “Rape the Cadet,” and presumably thought that I found that funny or that I was “in on the joke.”
On the bridge, at sea, I saw the Chief Mate approach the Deck Cadet from behind, grab him and simulate “humping” or anal sex on the cadet’s backside.
The Chief Mate made threats to punch a hole completely through one of the Cadet’s body at the location of his genitals. I do not remember if he said it was the Engine Cadet or the Deck Cadet or both. He explained to me in exhaustive detail how he could punch a cadet from behind at the location of his genitals and then push his hand all the way though his body so that at the end there would be a hole that he could see through to the other side where the cadet’s genitals had been. How do you respond when you are in the middle of the ocean on a ship and your boss tells you that?
On numerous occasions I saw the Chief Mate threaten to punch the cadet in the genitals. The Chief Mate would pull back his fist as if about to strike a punch while the cadet stood recoiling, unsure if his boss is joking or not.
The Chief Mate bragged to me that he had made a “bet” or “wager” with another crew member on the ship. The Chief Mate said to me: “Yeah, here’s the deal. If I win the bet, I get to punch the Deck Cadet in the Balls. If [the other crew member wins], I get to punch the Deck Cadet in the Balls. Hahaha. Do you get it? Either way I punch the Deck Cadet in the balls.” Upon hearing this statement I reacted the way that I generally reacted to the nearly constant stream of disgusting sexual and sexually violent statements that came out of the Chief Mate’s mouth: I stared at him quizzically and said nothing, or perhaps uttered something without any meaning such as “Huh, you don’t say, Chief Mate?”
NICKNAMES: The Chief Officer has a practice of assigning nicknames to the Deck Cadet and to himself and he would order the Deck Cadet to use the nickname assigned to him instead of his real name of the title “Deck Cadet.”
One particularly memorable set of nicknames that the Chief Mate required the Deck Cadet to use were “Big Daddy” and “Buttercup.” A typical inter-ship working-radio conversation, which I heard while on watch on the bridge and which could be heard by anyone else on the ship carrying their radio, went like this:
Cadet: “Chief Mate, this is the deck cadet, do you copy?”
Chief Mate: “Nooooo, your name is not Deck Cadet and my name is not Chief Mate. Now be a good boy and say it the way you know how.”
Cadet: “Ummm, Big Daddy, this is Buttercup, do you copy?”
Chief Mate: “Ohhhhh yeahhhh, that’s a good boy. What can Big Daddy do for you, Buttercup?
This is one example of many different nicknames, almost all sexual in nature, that the Chief Mate required the Deck Cadet to use publicly.
Forcing the Deck Cadet to come to his room to watch movies at night. The Deck Cadet complained to me that the Chief Mate on at least one occasion called the Deck Cadet after the Chief Mate’s watch ended at 2000 and forced the Cadet to come to his room to watch a movie. I do not know how many times this happened.
During a fire drill, in the Cargo Control Room with most of the crew mustered, the Chief Officer made the engine cadet stand in place while the Chief Officer used a Sharpie to draw what he called a “sperm” on the front of the engine cadet’s hardhat. The Drawing was a squiggly line with a circle at the top which represented a single sperm. The Chief Officer announced that the engine cadet was now going to be known as “Cadet Hot Load.” A “Hot Load” he explained was the fresh ejaculation from a man’s penis — still warm and at body temperature. The engine cadet had to stand and receive this demeaning sexual humiliation from the Chief Officer in front of the rest of the crew and to wear this drawing on his hat.
At dinner one night at sea I saw the Chief Officer reach under the dinner table in the Officer’s Saloon and place his hand on the engine cadet’s thigh. The Engine Cadet said “Don’t touch me,” whereupon the Chief Mate responded by smiling and saying “I’m not touching you,” while maintaining his hand on the engine cadet’s thigh under the table. The Engine Cadet backed away from the table.
These are just a few notable examples that I personally saw or was told about. I can only imagine how many other things happened that I did not see or was not made aware of.
The treatment of the Deck Cadet by the Chief Mate on this ship made me nauseous and deeply angry. I remembered my first ship as a cadet and how powerless I felt compared to the senior officers on the ship. I also remembered my own ignorance about what it even meant to “go to sea,” and I began to realize that this cadet thought that the sexual abuse and excessive work hours that he was being subjected to were normal.
I believe that the company needs to interview past cadets who have worked aboard this ship under this Chief Mate to find out if he has raped or sexually assaulted a cadet in the past. I think he is a dangerous person, and it truly scares me to think about this man being in charge of cadets, or being the master of a vessel with no one at all to check his behavior.
I believe that an investigation also needs to be conducted into the illegal work hours that cadets on this and other company ships being forced to work, and the fraudulent documentation of their STCW work hours.
I was deeply ashamed to have been a member of the deck department on this ship and to have been associated with the deeply unprofessional conduct of my boss, the Chief Mate. There is no place for his physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually abusive conduct on a ship, or anywhere. Unfortunately, a ship is the kind of place where a person like this can hide. I pray that something is done about it.
J. Ryan Melogy