Regan Clears Captain of Murder
March 18, 1995 Saturday, RIVER PARISHES
By Bill Voelker
A Louisiana tugboat captain who ordered three Guyana stowaways to leap from a barge into open waters five miles north of Jamaica was found innocent Friday of second-degree murder after his defense attorney hammered away at the possibility that the three men survived.
A 12-member jury deliberated about three hours before returning the verdict for Patrick Anthony Kiffe, 37, of LaRose, ending a five-day trial before U.S. District Judge Marcel Livaudais Jr.
The jury also found Kiffe innocent of lesser charges including either voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.
Kiffe testified he gave the men lifejackets and supplies, then bullied them into jumping from the barge May 5, 1993, because he feared they were members of the "pirate" group that had attacked his tug in a Guyana harbor earlier. He said he feared for his ship and crew.
Kiffe, who was fired after the incident by tug owner Otto Candies Inc. of Des Allemands, said he acted wildly and cursed at the men to get them to jump.
After the men went over the side, he testified, "I told them God bless 'em and I hope they make it to shore." But two crew members testified that Kiffe had said the men "were too dumb to make it" to shore and would be "shark s-- by morning."
Trenton Augustus Scipio, 32, Aubrey Anthony Bowen, 33, and Prince Horne, 22, have not been found since they jumped.
Nine relatives of the men have filed a federal suit seeking about $28 million from Kiffe, the tug and barge owners and their insurers. The case was stayed pending the criminal trial.
Defense attorney Martin Regan argued the men, including Horne, who hadn't learned to swim, could have made it to shore with the lifejackets, food and water they were supplied.
The defense offered expert witnesses to contradict government counterparts who had argued the men, weakened by days of exposure and lack of nourishment on the barge, would have died of exposure in the 80-degree waters and would never have been swept to the shore.
But Capt. Ricardo Ardito of Jamaica, a scuba diving expert, testified for the defense that he has taken tourist groups diving off the island's north coast thousands of times over the past six years and none has ever being attacked by sharks.
Ardito, 30, said he hired two men, 26 and 33, for $500 last Sunday to don lifejackets, shorts and T-shirts and enter the water at the same site the stowaways jumped into the water.
In waves ranging from 4 to 16 feet in blustery weather, Ardito said, the pair started the trip at 9:15 a.m. and reached landfall at St. Ann Bay west of Ocho Rios at 3 p.m.
Emerging with no physical discomfort, he testified, "They walked in and were hungry, so we went to dinner."
Prosecution witnesses argued the weakened stowaways would have died or needed hospitalization after several hours in the salty water and elements.
Regan argued that fishermen about three miles from shore could have picked up the men as they maneuvered toward land with at least two hours of daylight remaining.
"There's no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that they're not still alive," Regan argued.
U.S. Attorney Eddie Jordan Jr., who elevated the original attempted-murder charge to second-degree murder, said he did not think a lesser charge would have mattered. With attempted murder, prosecutors would not have had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the men were dead.
"I don't think the charge made a difference," Jordan said. "The jury would not go along with the fact these men are dead."
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