Shipping Firm, Captain Indicted in Oil Spill

A federal grand jury has indicted the owners and operators of a Liberian-flagged tanker ship that the Coast Guard says caused a $1.3-million oil spill that killed nearly 100 seabirds and polluted the Half Moon Bay coast in September.

The U.S. attorney’s office announced the indictments at a news conference Wednesday, just one day after the San Francisco office was criticized for having the poorest record of any U.S. attorney’s office for prosecuting environmental crimes.

Three counts each were handed down against the Liberian-registered company that owns the tanker Command, the Greek company that manages and operates the ship, and the ship’s captain and chief engineer.

U.S. Atty. Robert Mueller said the government does not know where the suspects are, but will “pursue all the possibilities, including extradition,” to bring them to trial in the United States.

The case marks the first time the Coast Guard has boarded a foreign-flagged vessel in international waters to investigate an environmental crime, according to Coast Guard spokesman Edwin W. Lyngar. The Coast Guard commonly boards foreign-flagged ships in international waters to search for illegal drugs.

The 717-foot Command was 200 miles off the Central American coast, heading toward Panama, when the Coast Guard boarded the vessel with the Liberian government’s permission Oct. 3, Lyngar said. Coast Guard investigators spent 36 hours collecting evidence before the Liberian government withdrew its permission to board, he said.

The Command is suspected of leaking 2,300 gallons of fuel oil into the ocean Sept. 26, a day after the vessel sailed from San Francisco Bay. The spill was seen about eight miles off the coast of Pacifica, just south of San Francisco. It quickly spread south toward Half Moon Bay, where oil began washing ashore Sept. 30.

The Coast Guard and other federal agencies spent $1.3 million cleaning the oily goo out of the water and off beaches, Lyngar said. Chemical samples taken from the slick matched samples taken from the Command, he said. The ship is owned by the Pearl Shipping Corp. and managed and operated by ANAX International Agencies.

The indictments announced Wednesday were against Pearl, ANAX, the ship’s captain, Dimitrios Georgantas, and chief engineer Lampros Karaganis. Each was charged with conspiring to violate the federal Clean Water Act, knowingly discharging oil and failing to immediately notify the Coast Guard.

On each count, the corporations could be fined $500,000 each, in addition to having to pay restitution to the government for the cleanup. The captain and chief engineer could be fined $250,000 each for each count and imprisoned up to five years.

“We are disappointed, but not surprised by the U.S. attorney’s action,” an attorney for Pearl Shipping said in a prepared statement. Attorney Matthew Vafidis insisted that the ship did not spill the oil.

Vafidis said the fuel carried by the Command could have been carried by any number of vessels sailing in the area, and said the ship’s fuel records indicate that no fuel was missing.

In another prepared statement, Georgantas’ attorney compared his client to Richard Jewel, the security guard falsely implicated by authorities and the media after the Olympic bombing in Atlanta.

“Capt. Dimitrios Georgantas is innocent,” said Douglas R. Schwartz. “Capt. Georgantas’ name will stand side by side with that of Richard Jewel as an innocent person victimized by an incomplete, misguided and misdirected investigation.”

On Tuesday, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reported that the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco has filed criminal charges in only 12.5% of the environmental cases referred to it in the last seven years. The organization is a nonprofit group funded by media foundations that compiles data about federal law enforcement agencies.