LAKE GEORGE---Shoreline Cruises Inc. of Lake George, owner of the tour boat Ethan Allen, and the boat's captain, Richard Paris, pleaded guilty Monday to a misdemeanor charge of violating the state's Navigation law by failing to have more than one crew member on board on Oct. 2, 2005, when the boat sank in Lake George and killed 20 of its 47 passengers.

Warren County Court Judge John Hall fined both Paris and the corporation each $250, the maximum fine possible under the law and in addition, Paris has agreed to perform 210 hours of community service in lieu of the maximum jail time of 15 days.

Paris said that he was glad to get the matter behind him. James Quirk, Shoreline's owner, declined to comment.

Paris and the company had been indicted by a Warren County Grand Jury. In addition to returning the indictments, in early February the Grand Jury issued a 15-page report with legislative recommendations. By law, the report had to be filed with Hall for review to determine if there was a factual basis for the legislative recommendations that were made. So far, Hall has not made the report public.

In announcing the indictment and report, Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan said that while she couldn't specifically say what the recommendations were, "I think you have a right to know that the recommendations are in the arena of stability, stability requirements of a public vessel, the crew requirements of a public vessel and a breath test".

Under current state law, a breathalyzer test is not required in boating accidents. A law enforcement agency can request an operator to take such a test and if asked, he is required to do so. Paris, 74, for alcohol and/or drugs immediately after the accident, a decision made by Sheriff Larry CLeveland, has come under fire. Cleveland said that he didn't believe Paris was under the influence because he had him "blow" in his face and Cleveland said he didn't detect any odor of alcohol. It's not known how Cleveland ruled out the presence of drugs. Cleveland said no favoritism was shown in his decision not to test Paris, a retired New York State trooper and friend of Cleveland's for 20 years.

Previous investigations of the boating tragedy had been undertaken by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Warren County Sheriff's Department. The NTSB concluded that the probable cause of the accident was the tour boat's insufficient stability, a sharp turn undertaken by the captain and the resulting involuntarily shift of passengers to the port side of the vessel.

The sheriff's department report released by Sheriff Larry Cleveland concluded that "no culpable criminal conduct had occurred" by Paris or Shoreline Cruises.

Hogan said that the law prevented her from bringing charges of criminal negligence in the case based on the known evidence.

"Criminal negligence is different than civil negligence", she said, saying that in criminal negligence, "the risk has to be of such a magnitude that in order to avoid the act, the occurrence, it has to be foreseeable, and if you foresee the event and go forward, then you have been criminally negligent".

She had said that Ethan Allen owners James and Hugh Quirk could not be charged individually because they could not prove through witnesses that "they were on notice this particular day, this particular sail of the Ethan Allen that they were not compliant with the regulations".

Nineteen of the 20 victims were from Michigan and one was from Ohio. There are at least nine civil lawsuits pending.

The NTSB said the stability of the 40-foot tour boat was insufficient because it was carrying four times the alleged passenger weight it should have been. The boat carried 48 persons where post-accident stability calculations demonstrated that it should have been permitted to carry only 14 persons. Contributing to the cause of the accident was the failure to reassess the vessel's stability after it had been modified because there was no clear requirement to do so, NTSB officials said.

In 1964, the Ethan Allen, a 40-foot fiberglass excursion vessel operating under a different name, was certified by the U.S. Coast Guard to carry 48 passengers and two crewmembers. In 1979, the boat was purchased by Shoreline Cruises, Inc. and relocated from Connecticut to New York where it came under the jurisdiction of the state. New York state officials established the same load restrictions for the vessel as the U.S. Coast Guard.

In 1989, an all-wood canopy with Plexiglas windows was installed on the Ethan Allen by the Scarano Boat Company of Albany. The state's file on the vessel contains no record of inspections and/or stability assessments relating to modifications to the boat's canopy between 1979 and 1991.

As a result of its investigation, the NTSB recommended that the U.S. Coast provide guidance to the states on U.S. Coast Guard standards for and assessment stability of small passenger vessels, that New York State address safety deficiencies identified in the investigation of the Ethan Allen accident and issue technical guidance to vessel owners on the inspection requirements for modified vessels, stability assessment and criteria, means for determining maximum safe load conditions, drug and alcohol testing, manning, and safety briefings and discontinue the use of capacity plate data associated with the U.S. Coast Guard's noncommercial boating standards for determining passenger loading on public vessels that carry more than six passengers and adopt the Coast Guard small passenger vessel inspection standards.
3-26-07

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