MLAA

15/08/2025

Maritime Legal Aid: All Bad News, All the time. The should prosecute the people running our nation’s most well known maritime training school next, starting with that school’s counsel and her co-conspirators at MARAD…

13/08/2025

Sometimes it’s fun to remember that all of this started when Chief Mate Mark Stinziano groped Ryan Melogy during a lifeboat operation in Salalah, Oman in 2015. If you see him around, tell Mark thanks for making the U.S. flag the safest flag in the world and the only flag actively and imperfectly working to address the maritime predator problem. But you’ll have to thank him on land, because his MMC and license are currently suspended again and he’s facing permanent revocation. All that union-dues money Masters, Mates, & Pilots Presidents Don Marcus and Don Josberger have spent funding Stinziano’s legal defense was for Naught.

03/08/2025

Former Maritime Administration Chief Counsel Denise Krepp has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Navy, alleging retaliation after she spoke to Congress about the Coast Guard’s history of mishandled sexual assault cases. The suit alleges a pattern of workplace hostility, forged documents, and attempts to silence her advocacy around Operation Fouled Anchor—a secretive internal investigation that exposed decades of abuse at the Coast Guard Academy.

Read the full story: ⬇️

July 26, 2025 By: MLAA New York, NY Denise Rucker Krepp, a Coast Guard veteran, attorney, and former Chief Counsel of the U.S. Maritime Administration, has filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of the Navy , accusing senior leadership of the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) of re

03/08/2025

April 4, 2025: Report to Congress.
Number of reports received by the under 46 U.S.C. §10104 in FY 2024:

• Sexual Assault – 18
• Assault – 15
• Sexual Harassment – 107
• Harassment – 147

TOTAL – 287

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Additional reports received by the S&R NCOE outside the scope of 46 U.S.C. §10104 that require administrative action:

• Prior Conviction of Sexual Offense – 17
• TWIC Suspension or Revocation for Sexual Felony Offense – 20

TOTAL – 37

02/08/2025

“She’s not a poster. She’s our baby girl.”
Members of Paige Bell’s family are asking the public not to share social media posts about her death. They told South Africa’s The Witness that the viral spread of her funeral notice has brought more pain than support, and they’re dismayed that strangers around the world are demanding details about how she died—and that some (ourselves included) are making her into a “poster” and framing her murder as a symbol of the dangers young crew face in yachting, and the way those dangers are buried beneath glamour and silence.

It’s a blurry, difficult, treacherous line to walk. Families of murder victims deserve peace. Victims of abuse and crime at sea deserve privacy (if they want it). But once a crime is reported, it becomes a matter of public record and legitimate public and journalistic interest. not exploitation. Ultimately, there is no accountability without transparency.

Paige’s story resonates because it isn’t isolated. It reflects deep, systemic failures around safety, silence, and the vulnerability of young men and women working at sea. Avoiding stories like hers only protects the conditions that allowed it to happen.

This is the tension we’ve faced from the day we launched this account, and the criticism has never stopped. Some of it is fair. Most isn’t. Too much of it comes from people—often women—who benefit from protecting the status quo, chasing clout or cash in an industry that runs on silence.

Paige shouldn’t be reduced to clickbait. But she shouldn’t be erased, either. Her story deserves to be told: with care, with truth, and with the goal of making sure it never happens again.

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21/07/2025

The Safer Seas Act (SSA) mandated the give Congress an annual report on their efforts to implement the SSA and combat sexual misconduct in the U.S. maritime industry. This is the first report produced by the CG (signed by disgraced former Commandant Lying Linda Fagan), and covers 2023, the year following the passage of the SSA in December of 2022 as part of the NDAA. This is only the beginning of the revolution in maritime safety we started right here on this Instagram account 5 years ago in the summer of 2020. We began this account by attacking the and promising to EXPOSE the agency over its policy of enabling sexual abuse in the maritime industry and failing to enforce 46 U.S.C. 10104. If you don’t believe us, scroll down and look at our very first IG post. From this report:
“Most notably, the Coast Guard observed a substantial increase in reporting from less than three cases annually to hundreds of new and previously unreported allegations dating back over a decade.”
Boom.

19/07/2025

18/07/2025

We have been screaming for 5 years that the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Defense, and various sub agencies of these departments (including , the , , and many others) have been actively and systematically COVERING UP SEXUAL ABUSE committed and enabled by powerful people, companies, and the leaders of the agencies themselves. And we have PROVEN much of what we have said all along is true. The U.S. government and the Department of Justice specifically are the biggest enablers of sexual abuse in this country and possibly the world, and if anyone wants to debate us on that assertion, please step forward and let’s have that public debate. This disgusting case involving our sexual predator president goes to the heart of the exact same issues we have been screaming about for five years, and we will continue to cover the ongoing coverup. We will also continue calling for the release of the OPERATION FOULED ANCHOR files by and her , and we call for to call for the release of these files and for ACCOUNTABILITY for the officers and leaders who covered up OFA.

14/07/2025

“This is getting out of control. They stole my photo from Facebook, and it’s affecting me and my family. It’s a mistake that has caused me many problems and isn’t easily resolved. They’re already harassing my children. I’m even afraid to go out; my photo is everywhere,” he told the Zócalo newspaper.

14/07/2025

A photo of the man accused of murdering 20 year old crew member Paige Bell aboard the yacht “Far From It” near Harbour Island in the Bahamas on 3 July. Apparently, media outlets including the UK’s GUARDIAN have published and disseminated a photo of a man who is not accused of the murder. Lara was denied bail and remains in jail in the Bahamas.
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13/07/2025

A new comment on our blog, which represents a new development in the case of Masters, Mates, Pilots (MMP) Chief Mate Philip Heidner, who was convicted of ra**ng and murdering a passenger aboard the APL PRESIDENT JACKSON. The commenter claims to be the child of the victim and rebuts assertions of a previous commenter.

https://www.maritimelegalaid.com/foia/don-marcus-allowed-rapist-murderer-mmp-member

10/07/2025

SUN: “Bill Gates has a mansion on the tiny island and regular holidaymakers include Mick Jagger, Prince Harry, Tom Cruise, Kardashians, Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks.

“It is known as the “Billionaires’ Backyard” as over 20 billionaires live on the paradise island.

“A huge bash was being planned for Friday in the marina and on the yacht to mark Paige’s 21st birthday - which had been planned by her boyfriend.

“Crew on the exclusive yacht which costs £120,000-a-week to charter were puzzled last week when there was no sign of Paige or answer from her phone.They searched all six luxury VIP suites and the crew quarters before one member of staff went down into the engine room where they discovered the horror.

“Paige’s dead body was reportedly found on the floor.

“Her shipmate was lying close to her covered in blood with a knife in his hand, with both his wrists slashed, police said.

“Officers were called to the vessel at 1pm on July 3 and found the suspect still alive but bleeding heavily beside the young victim’s body.”