Father who threw son off boat in Newport Harbor sentenced to rehab

A father who threw his 7-year-old son off a cruise boat into Newport Harbor was convicted Monday of felony child abuse and resisting an officer. He was sentenced to rehab.

Sloan Briles, 35, pleaded guilty to throwing his son into the busy harbor waters Aug. 28, an incident that drew widespread media attention after Briles spoke to various outlets about it. At one point, he said he had done nothing wrong.

“We were having fun. It was a harbor cruise,” he said.

Briles, a former Marine, was sentenced to three years of probation, 180 days in a Veterans Administration residential treatment program and one year in a child abusers treatment program.

If he does not complete the inpatient program, a warrant will be issued and he will have to serve six months in Orange County Jail; he would not receive credit for any days completed in treatment.

“It’s an all-or-nothing deal,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Cyril Yu, who said he was satisfied with the guilty plea but believed jail time would have been appropriate.

“Certainly, he was cognizant of what took place,” Yu said.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald was stern with Briles and voiced skepticism about whether he would be able to complete the court-ordered treatment. During sentencing, Fitzgerald said he recalled reading about “this silliness in the newspaper.”

Briles was heavily intoxicated at the time of the incident; and his lawyer, Brian Gurwitz, said Briles was hospitalized for alcohol withdrawal for two days after his arrest.

Gurwitz said he was satisfied with the plea. “It’s an offer that allows Mr. Briles to get his life back on track,” he said, adding that Briles has been sober for 90 days.

Briles was on a harbor cruise with his girlfriend and two sons from a previous marriage when he poked his older son in the chest and slapped him in the face, making him cry, according to the district attorney’s office.

The boy asked his father to stop, but he picked the child up and threw him about 10 feet over the side of the boat, prosecutors said. The boat veered to avoid hitting the boy, and the captain threw the boy a life ring.

Briles then jumped into the water to avoid angry passengers, while people on another boat helped the boy out of the water, authorities reported.

The father has to report to the residential program within three days.

nicole.santacruz@latimes.com