Now 21 years old, the alleged victim has spoken for the first time about her experience. (BuzzFeed News refers to her as “G.” to protect her identity.) So, at just 11 years old, G. was on the cruise with her grandmother and little sister and was excited about the vacation. “Automatically, when you’re a kid, you think it’s going to be amazing,” she said.
Before the ship set sail for the Caribbean, G. went downstairs to get the Wi-Fi password, he told BuzzFeed News. “I asked the person outside the restaurant how to get to the lobby,” he recalled. “And when he guided me, he immediately grabbed my breasts.”
G. ran to the lobby looking for someone who could tell him the Wi-Fi password. She said she was “afraid to go in the same direction” on the way back because she might bump into the man who had touched her. But he needed to get back to his room and was afraid of getting lost on the giant ship.
Passing by the restaurant, G. entered an elevator. She said the same employee followed her and blocked the doors. “He said, ‘Can I have a kiss?’” she recalled. “I kissed him on the cheek and he said, ‘No, not there.’” She then alleged that the employee leaned over and kissed her on the mouth.
After he released her, G. ran to her room crying. “I didn’t know what to do,” he said.
She said she told her grandmother why she was so distraught and they went to the lobby to report what happened to guest services. G. said he was asked about the incident and what the employee was like and was promised it would be investigated.
Taplin, who was on board at the time, said he viewed surveillance footage from the elevator, which confirmed the boy’s version of events. Later, G. said he was asked to identify the attacker by looking at photos of four employees. According to Taplin and G., the girl identified the attacker as a waiter from one of the ship’s restaurants.
Taplin said she did everything she could to investigate the case, but claimed she was stonewalled throughout the process. He claimed he told one of the ship’s senior officers to call the FBI while the ship was still docked in Port Canaveral, Florida. But the officer decided to set sail around 5 p.m. and did not inform the FBI until the ship was in international waters.
Later, Taplin said, the superior officer interviewed the accused crew member while she was present. The official report of the meeting, obtained by BuzzFeed News, states that the crew member “hesitated, but ultimately denied kissing the girl” and only “high-fived her and gave her a hug.”
Taplin said what was not included in the report was that during the meeting, the officer had threatened the crew member, telling him, “I’m going to cut off your dick right now” and that he would remove the crew member’s testicles and “put his balls in his mouth.”
When the ship docked in the Bahamas the next day, local police officers arrived. According to Taplin, the police berated and threatened the alleged attacker, pressuring him to confess. “It was so bad,” Taplin said. “I mean, you caught him red-handed with what he had done, right?”
In the end, he signed a statement that Taplin said was written by Bahamian police. “I touched her right breast with my left hand,” the signed confession says. However, Taplin noted that the alleged suspect was not arrested. Instead, he was repatriated to the Indian state of Goa.
G. said she was so scared for the rest of the vacation that she didn’t want to be separated from her grandmother and never felt safe on board again. She said she was only able to relax during a stop at Castaway Cay, a private Caribbean island owned by Disney, because she knew her attacker wouldn’t be there.
After G. reported the attack, she said Disney ordered the employee who was cleaning her room to demonstrate how they create animals with towels and put a princess quilt on her bed. “But that was basically it,” he said. After returning home from his cruise, G. said his family only heard from Disney once to tell them that the accused crew member had been deported.
