Passenger aboard Margaritaville cruise says she was raped, impregnated by ship bartender
WEST PALM BEACH — A second passenger aboard the Margaritaville At Sea Paradise cruise ship has accused a crewmate of sneaking into her room and raping her while she slept.
The woman, identified in a December lawsuit only as Jane Doe, said she became pregnant as a result and "was forced to terminate the pregnancy, from which she then suffered serious complications."
Her lawsuit against the Classica cruise line is the second stemming from a May 5 incident aboard the Bahama-bound ship. Doe and her cabinmate, identified in a separate lawsuit as HB, say bartender Hoobesh Dookhy pocketed one of their room keys while serving the women drinks and used it to enter after both women fell asleep.
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Doe said she woke to find Dookhy caressing her face and sexually assaulting her. She told FBI agents that she demanded he leave, but he moved to HB's bed and began to assault her, too.
Doe photographed the assault and reported it to cruise ship security the following morning. According to court records, investigators found the women's room key in the pocket of Dookhy's work vest and a photo he took of HB, naked and asleep, on his cellphone.
Dookhy later admitted to having sex with HB but told investigators that their encounter was consensual. Faced with the possibility of life in federal prison on a sexual abuse charge, he pleaded guilty to one count of abusive sexual contact in October — forgoing his right to a trial by jury but cementing a deal with prosecutors to have the worst of the two charges against him dropped.
Neither charge stemmed from the rape Doe describes in her newly filed lawsuit. She was classified as a witness to her cabinmate's sexual assault rather than as a victim to her own, but her attorney said Dookhy's conviction and the subsequent media attention surrounding HB's lawsuit convinced her to file one, too.
While Dookhy awaits a penalty of up to two years in prison for his criminal conviction, Doe seeks more than $75,000 from the cruise line that employed him. Her lawsuit comes two months after U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg struck down HB's own request for punitive damages against Classica. She continues to seek compensatory damages.
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Spencer Aronfeld, Doe's attorney, said the judge's decision doesn't preclude his client from seeking punitive damages as well. He called the two lawsuits "considerably different" in terms of the damages reported by both women — the most notable being Doe's pregnancy and abortion.
Aronfeld said his client did not undergo a paternity test to determine who fathered the child but said Doe intends to testify that she and her husband were not sexually active before or after the alleged rape.
Doe joins a long list of passengers and crew members who say they were victimized aboard cruise ships. More than 500 sexual-assault reports were documented between 2010 and 2022 on 13 major cruise lines, according to data published by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
A spokesperson for Margaritaville at Sea Paradise declined to comment.
Hannah Phillips covers criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism and subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Margaritaville at Sea bartender accused of raping, impregnating passenger
