Dive Boat Skipper Faces Up to 35 Years in Prison for Manslaughter and Covid Fraud

Engine Slipped Into Reverse, Resulting in a Woman's Death

Dustin McCabe, left, will be sentenced for up to 35 years on June 12. A federal jury determined earlier this week that McCabe’s actions led to the death of Mollie Ghiz-Flynn in front of her husband Sean. McCabe operated his dive boat out of Palm Beach.

A slack Florida captain faces up to 35 years in prison after a customer of his was sucked into the propeller of his dive boat, sliced up and drowned. There’s more.

A federal jury also found that after having being prohibited from chartering because of the accident, the guy lied to obtain more than $39,000 in Covid relief money.

Dustin Sean McCabe, 49, had faced a rare combo of criminal charges during his trial—manslaughter, lying to the Coast Guard and fraud. The latter is what makes the case rare since the fraud part involved a victim other than the dead girl, the U.S. taxpayer.

McCabe’s lawyers tried to get the fraud charge tried separately because the jury would likely conclude that a murdering grifter might be seen as even less sympathetic than a standalone murderer or standalone grifter. The judge said no.

A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in September 2020 by Sean Flynn on behalf of his late wife Mollie, who was 37. The lawsuit against McCabe and his company, Florida Scuba Charters, was quickly settled for an undisclosed sum of money.

In that non-criminal case, lawyers argued that McCabe had actually shifted one of the engines in reverse while the victim was in the water beside the transom and about to board via the swim platform. The criminal case was more nuanced in assigning blame.

According to court documents, McCabe had just purchased Southern Comfort, a 1988 Ocean Yachts Cruiser 48. He set about to convert her to a dive boat, which for reasons not stated, involved elimination of the deckhouse helm station in favor of flybridge controls only.

Apparently the lying-to-the-Coast-Guard charge stemmed from McCabe having listed Southern Comfort as a recreational vessel on his application for federal documentation, then later taking up to eight divers on paid excursions.

The fatal accident happened on March 29, 2020. That was McCabe’s second excursion with the new boat. The first happened the day before, and it had not gone well either, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

“One of the incidents involved the portside propeller engaging when the vessel was in neutral during the pickup of a diver, which led to the diver being sucked toward the propeller and narrowly escaping.”

En route to the dock, some kind of control issue caused Southern Comfort to run aground. This from the civil suit:

Divers who experienced the horrors and problems from the March 28, 2020 trip begged defendant Florida Scuba not to take the vessel out again for dive trips until the vessel was fixed, and defendant Dustin McCabe was better experienced to competently and safely operate the vessel…Florida Scuba disregarded these warnings and pleas and made the decision to conduct dive charters the following day with defendant Dustin McCabe at the helm.

That next day Southern Comfort returned to Breakers Reef about a mile and a half from Lake Worth inlet with a new complement of divers. The accident happened just like the one the day before—the portside engine went into reverse while Flynn and his wife were loitering around the swim platform and she was killed.

Federal prosecutors, however, did not allege that Flynn had actually shifted the boat into reverse with divers at the stern.

Key testimony came from Allan Roth, a veteran U.S. Coast Guard marine inspector. Roth had reached several conclusions based on his inspection of Southern Comfort systems and examination of the timeline.

Southern Comfort was initially seized by Florida Fish & Wildlife as part of its investigation.

Roth testified that modifications such as removal of deckhouse controls can cause malfunctions that are difficult to predict, but much less so if the work is performed by skilled technicians and followed up with sea trials. After the first incident with reverse gear, McCabe should have notified the Coast Guard and called a mechanic to inspect the controls and make repairs, followed up with sea trials, Roth said.

The fact that no sea trials were performed before a second excursion was “highly unusual,” Roth said.

The Seaman’s Manslaughter Statute criminalizes misconduct or negligence that leads to death aboard a vessel. As prosecutors wrote in the indictment:

Dustin Sean McCabe being then and there the captain, engineer, and other person employed on a vessel, that is, the M/V Southern Comfort, by his misconduct, negligence and inattention to his duties on said vessel, and, being then and there the owner and charterer of a vessel, that is, M/V Southern Comfort by his fraud, neglect, connivance, misconduct, and violation of law on said vessel, caused the life of (Mary Catherine Ghiz Flynn) to be destroyed.”

Then, while his boat was under arrest and his business non-functioning, McCabe obtained two loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, a Covid-era government assistance program. According to prosecutors, McCabe obtained more than $39,000 by submitting fake documents that misrepresented his company’s status and payroll, lies that he repeated when he successfully applied for loan forgiveness under the program.

(McCabe also had lied to Geico, his insurer. A second lawsuit regarding the accident, filed by Geico, revealed that McCabe had told the company that the boat was recreational, so there would be no coverage during charters.)

On Wednesday, the jury found McCabe guilty, guilty, guilty. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon will sentence him on June 12.