IN - Grandfather charged in cruise ship death of toddler Chloe Wiegand #7

[al66pine]

Windows & Other Windows

Unfortunately not the same windows. The middle section of windows on Freedom of the Seas continues angling out away from the ship. On your ship (Vision of the Seas?) the middle section of windows is angling back toward the ship. Not apples to apples.

@mheido67 bbm Thank you for your point about the windows. So easy for us non-designer peeps to inadvertently overlook something like this. Glad to have an architect on the thread who can spot the difference in a nano-second.

@Pammi 's pic emphasizes how biiiiig and wiiiiide the windows open. Winkleman's profile-angle pix camouflages that ^. W Pammi's pic, I feel like I'm standing at the window and w a slight lean forward, I would be flying off the ship.

 

[Pammi]

Unfortunately not the same windows. The middle section of windows on Freedom of the Seas continues angling out away from the ship. On your ship (Vision of the Seas?) the middle section of windows is angling back toward the ship. Not apples to apples.

You’re correct however he said both classes of ship follow the same maritime safety standard for rail height, size, weight it can hold, where they place it, etc... I am relying on a RCCL officer though, he could be wrong I’ll admit....

 

[justbreathe]

These bulleted points from the DM article say it all:

• Chloe's parents begged Puerto Rican prosecutors to stop criminal proceedings in an emotion-charged statement shared exclusively with DailyMail.com
• Alan and Kimberly Wiegand say evidence from their own private investigation shows it was 'physically impossible' for Anello to have dangled her overboard
• 'We have never wanted charges filed against Sam because we know with all of our hearts that he would never put Chloe in harm's way,' they said
• Anello, elderly and color-blind, made his third court appearance today in San Juan, Puerto Rico

I’m not elderly! If I am where is my social security check? This is pathetic.

No one, absolutely no one, cares what the Wiegands want.

I wish my court case worked that way - Can you PLEASE dismiss this federal law suit because I know in my heart I owe no money?

I can hear my stalker now - I know in my heart I would never harm her...

The Wiegands know that is not how it works. “If you can prove it was physically impossible to dangle her, well, I guess that’s it. I, the judge, don’t have to find as a matter of fact she was dangled via objective evidence. I’ll just take your word for it! And well, if you know in your heart, well, case closed.”

 

[justbreathe]

GMAFB. From your link:

'We respectfully ask the Puerto Rican prosecutors to take a hard look at the new evidence that has come to light,' Alan and Kimberly said in an emotion-charged statement shared exclusively with DailyMail.com. 'It shows what we have known all along, that Sam thought it was a wall of glass.

'We have never wanted charges filed against Sam because we know with all of our hearts that he would never put Chloe in harm's way.

'We will stand with Sam as long as it takes - but we cannot grieve as a family until the criminal charges are dropped.'
Parents of toddler dropped to her death from Royal Caribbean ship beg Puerto Rico to end case | Daily Mail Online

As an LE officer and attorney both parents know better; SA is charged with negligent homicide and intent is not necessary for a conviction, only that he acted in a negligent way. If the DA had evidence that SA had acted with intent to harm Chloe then the charges would be murder not negligence.

Sigh. I'm getting tired of the parents trying to spin this case into something it's not. Attempting to influence public opinion based on emotions is wearing thin. IMO it dishonors Chloe for SA and her parents to continue to deny his reckless actions. MOO.

They will stand with the killer of their baby daughter. For as long as it takes.

I feel physically ill.

 

[justbreathe]

It worries me greatly that the defense is ' rebuilding the scene.' If it is anything like the 'reenactment' it will be pathetic.

I wish they could take the jury on a day trip to the ship instead.

The judge isn’t going to have them rebuild the ship in his courtroom, when they can schedule the trial and witness trips around when the ship will be available.

And MW isn’t going to spend that kind of money.

I don’t think the rehab involves major structural changes to the ship, and yhe the windows will remain unchanged.

 

[SaguaroSpirit]

They will stand with the killer of their baby daughter. For as long as it takes.

I feel physically ill.

All kinds of every variety of wrong, there. That makes no sense...unless...yes, my mind goes there. SA needs to come clean about the whole thing. Throw whoever needs to be thrown under the bus.

 

[justbreathe]

Wow, the title and some of the statements in that article are a little misleading. In order to reject a plea deal, one would assume it was formally offered to him.
That is what I understood from the pages of discussion about whether or not he would accept it.

So apparently both sides discussed it as an option but no decision was made either way.

I wonder if SM's lawyer was pushing for a deal but grandpa wouldn't budge.

Imo

A plea deal won’t be formerly offered until both sides can agree. What would be the point of all the paperwork for nothing? Boyh sides were chatting about possibilities but SA wants that trial.

 

[justbreathe]

The DM article is more misleading statements. There is no 'new evidence." The only 'false narrative' is being created by Mr Winkleman, imo. His re-enactment proved nothing. If Sam would simply take responsibility, the tide of sentiment would become supportive of the family and perhaps charges would even be dropped. (I was being sardonic when I said that the bulleted points 'said it all.')

Comments here in the states and in PR have been overwhelmingly against SA.

 

[justbreathe]

This is incorrect. SA was never officially offered a plea deal. It was something that both sides discussed (verbally) but it was never concrete. The prosecutor said this herself in a spanish interview- that there was “discussion of a plea deal but nothing on the table and it looks like the case at this time will go to trial”.

That being said, I’m sure if SA indicated that he would take the discussed deal that the prosecutors would offer him one. But that did not happen.

I’ll try to find the link to the video where she says this, but it’s in Spanish.

He was unofficially offered a plea deal.

 

[justbreathe]

Oh my, is someone paying the Daily Mail to print this drivel?


"Alan and Kimberly Wiegand say evidence from their own private investigation into Chloe's fatal plunge from the Freedom of the Seas shows it was 'physically impossible' for Salvatore Anello to have dangled her overboard.

As the elderly, color-blind grandpa made his third court appearance today in San Juan, the couple called on prosecutors to scrap the negligent homicide charge so they can finally grieve together as a family."


So this 'new evidence' is that silly reenactment video that looks like it was done for a middle school project?

Yes, MW and his firm are paying to solicit those sweet European cruiser with a lawsuit on their mind.

Haven’t checked if the DM is monitoring comments. But I bet they are.

 

[Chikkamma]

I’m not elderly! If I am where is my social security check? This is pathetic.

No one, absolutely no one, cares what the Wiegands want.

I wish my court case worked that way - Can you PLEASE dismiss this federal law suit because I know in my heart I owe no money?

I can hear my stalker now - I know in my heart I would never harm her...

The Wiegands know that is not how it works. “If you can prove it was physically impossible to dangle her, well, I guess that’s it. I, the judge, don’t have to find as a matter of fact she was dangled via objective evidence. I’ll just take your word for it! And well, if you know in your heart, well, case closed.”

NO ONE. Your post made my day. Well said!

 

[justbreathe]

SA & Taking the 5th in Civil Action?
@justbreathe bbm sbm Yes, agreeing, SA could take the 5th, pre-crim trial.
In civil suit deposition, if RCL deposes SA, and he takes the 5th*, his refusal can be used as evd in RCL's def case. So seems AW & KS-W would not want SA deposed. Ditto his actually being on the stand & taking the 5th. RCL could use his silence in closing argument and, in jury instructions, judge would tell jury it could take his silence and inferences from it into consideration. So ^ a reason for plaintiffs to drag feet in civil case, until crim case is tried.
--- Participating in reenactment for civil case? Agree w @justbreathe, no forced participation.

Re both ^ points, it's hard to for me to imagine any stmts SA could make or any reenacting he could do in civil suit which would help civil trial jury to view his previous stmts & actions as less negligent than the RCL vids show.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
" ...Fifth Amendment protects individuals from being forced to incriminate themselves.... exposing oneself ...to "an accusation or charge of crime," or as involving oneself '...in a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof." ... defined as "the constitutional right of a person to refuse to answer questions or otherwise give testimony against himself. ... "
"The Supreme Court has held that "the Fifth Amendment does not forbid adverse inferences against parties to civil actions when they refuse to testify in response to probative evidence offered against them."... 'Silence is often evidence of the most persuasive character.'". ^Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia

Interesting. Supposedly pleading the 5th (or not taking the stand) should not be held against a defendant in a criminal trial.

What would a civil judge instruct if someone pleas the 5th in a civil case?

 

[justbreathe]

They “cannot grieve as a family until all criminal charges are dropped” AND they win kazillions of dollars. These people are something else...

No problem grieving through that civil trial.

 

[mheido67]

Windows & Other Windows
@mheido67 bbm Thank you for your point about the windows. So easy for us non-designer peeps to inadvertently overlook something like this. Glad to have an architect on the thread who can spot the difference in a nano-second.

@Pammi 's pic emphasizes how biiiiig and wiiiiide the windows open. Winkleman's profile-angle pix camouflages that ^. W Pammi's pic, I feel like I'm standing at the window and w a slight lean forward, I would be flying off the ship.

Emphasis mine above.

A comment about the windows;

They are big windows. Contrary to downplaying the size of the windows the MW filing actually tries to emphasize the size of the windows. He includes a whole bunch of photos claiming to show what one would see when standing against the rail and they are photos showing absolutely nothing but the sea. No window frames, no glass, no railing, no adjacent windows. Just water. IMO he did this on purpose to try and show that SA wouldn’t have had anything contrasting in his field of view to distinguish glass from no glass. He wants to make you think SA would be seeing nothing but the view outside the window. Of course they’re narrow angle photos probably taken with a phone. Nothing like a human eye which has peripherally a much wider field of view. If SA has his hands cupped around his eyes that’s all he might have seen. MW wants to make it look like SA would not have seen the frames or adjacent glass. It fits their narrative.

 

[mheido67]

You’re correct however he said both classes of ship follow the same maritime safety standard for rail height, size, weight it can hold, where they place it, etc... I am relying on a RCCL officer though, he could be wrong I’ll admit....

Pammi, I’m absolutely certain they follow the same safety standards. The main detail in both situations being that there is a safety railing in front of the windows to prevent people from leaning directly on window frames. That’s the bit that SA disregarded.

Another general point about safety standards, most if not all of the standards MW mentions in his motions were developed specifically for land based structures and with regard to window safety for residential multi family structures. And many of them are even more specific and applied to windows within dwelling units. I think MW would be hard pressed to convince a jury that the open air pool deck on a cruise ship constitutes a dwelling unit.

Similarly, most municipalities have enclosure laws regulating swimming pools. They must be fenced with a 4’ barrier that is equipped with self closing and latching gates. The gates need to swing out and the latch devise needs to be on the interior and out of reach of children. When’s the last time you saw such a setup around a cruise ship pool? Makes you go hmmmm.

 

[MsMarple]

Symphony does have operable windows at the perimeter of the pool deck (yes, near the kids splash zone as well). Very similar to Freedom but the operable portions are smaller. They are half of each window bay rather than the full bay like on Freedom.

Symphony of the Seas was built in March of 2018 and if it has windows that open on the pool deck then it stands to reason that up until then at least there were no changes in the so-called window standards for ships. IOW RCCL must have passed all required regs for ship design in 2018. So how can Winkleman claim they were not in compliance with ASTM standards - which do not cover ocean going ships as far as I understand and are voluntary? And of course until SA's reckless actions not one person, child or otherwise had ever fallen out of a window by the pool deck after standing or sitting on the railing. Talk about apples and oranges.
https://www.lipcon.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/DE-1-Wrongful-Death-Complaint.pdf

Still, if the court allows the civil case to go to trial it's possible a sympathetic jury could find RCCL negligent. However, in similar cases it's probable that they would assign percentages of liability to RCCL and SA so in theory a jury could find RCCL negligent for 1% and SA/the family negligent for 99%. In theory. I know what I would do if I was a juror.

 

[justbreathe]

What's even stranger to me is why did he let go at ALL? Ok you thought the window was closed (allegedly). She wanted to bang on the glass. It's 9 inches from the railing to the window approx. Wouldn't you still have a grip on her *no matter what* because she could have slipped and fell through the gap between the railing and the window? I cannot wrap my head around how he (a) had no grip on her and (b) did not have his hands close enough to her to grab her when she started moving forward. You can snap your hands out in a millisecond to grab a toddler if they start to fall. In looking at the video from the back angle, it's literally like he let her go, and she falls forward. And his reaction time isn't even fast enough to reach out and grab her. Every way I analyze this, his actions make no sense, unless he was impaired with medication, drugs or alcohol etc. and both his judgment and his reaction time was off.

I’ve seen funny videos of “dad saves” where he catches the falling kid. No paternal instinct here. He just though she fell on the floor.

 

[justice4allnow]

Haven’t checked if the DM is monitoring comments. But I bet they are.

Last I checked there were only about 250 comments. On unmoderated articles they go from 1500 to 2000. Yahoo News comments number many more than that! And almost all against the family's position, whether civil or criminal.

 

[justbreathe]

I don't think Winkleman altered the video. What I think happened is that CCTV records at a lower frames per second rate in order to save file space and some brands require specific software to reformat the captured video. Since MW was only given a copy of the video then the perceived time may change depending on what software was used to view it. You can see in the released videos that people are not walking smoothly like we would see on TV or a movie. That's because the recording captures fewer frames per second.

It's complicated but I believe that's what the "software issue" MW referred to was really about. It's discussed in the ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES LTD.’S UNOPPOSED MOTION FOR LEAVE TO CONVENTIONALLY FILE VIDEO FOOTAGE REFERENCED IN MOTION TO DISMISS COMPLAINT FOR FAILURE TO STATE A CAUSE OF ACTION found in the media links. I don't have a direct link, sorry.

4. If granted, RCL will provide the Clerk with a Flash Drive containing five separate files. The first two files contain footage from two cameras and in its original format. To view, the Court will need to download software containing a proprietary video player that RCL is including in the Flash Drive ( upon request, undersigned can also provide a laptop computer with the proprietary software already installed). The second and third files contain the identical footage in higher resolution. The fifth file contains a side-by-side view of the two higher resolution videos.

I could very well be wrong but I do believe it's more about file compression and proprietary software than MW or anyone else intentionally altering the video.

I don't think Winkleman altered the video. What I think happened is that CCTV records at a lower frames per second rate in order to save file space and some brands require specific software to reformat the captured video. Since MW was only given a copy of the video then the perceived time may change depending on what software was used to view it. You can see in the released videos that people are not walking smoothly like we would see on TV or a movie. That's because the recording captures fewer frames per second.

It's complicated but I believe that's what the "software issue" MW referred to was really about. It's discussed in the ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES LTD.’S UNOPPOSED MOTION FOR LEAVE TO CONVENTIONALLY FILE VIDEO FOOTAGE REFERENCED IN MOTION TO DISMISS COMPLAINT FOR FAILURE TO STATE A CAUSE OF ACTION found in the media links. I don't have a direct link, sorry.

4. If granted, RCL will provide the Clerk with a Flash Drive containing five separate files. The first two files contain footage from two cameras and in its original format. To view, the Court will need to download software containing a proprietary video player that RCL is including in the Flash Drive ( upon request, undersigned can also provide a laptop computer with the proprietary software already installed). The second and third files contain the identical footage in higher resolution. The fifth file contains a side-by-side view of the two higher resolution videos.

I could very well be wrong but I do believe it's more about file compression and proprietary software than MW or anyone else intentionally altering the video.

Yeah I’m sure MW and his giant cruise ship suing firm don’t already have the software a major cruise uses for its surveillance.

 

[justbreathe]

Last I checked there were only about 250 comments. On unmoderated articles they go from 1500 to 2000. Yahoo News comments number many more than that! And almost all against the family's position, whether civil or criminal.

Moderate. Couldn’t think of the word. I am not myself today.