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The Surf Into Summer boat left Cuba for Florida with Delray Beach resident Lewis Bennett and three-month-old wife Isabella Hellman with stolen coins. At the next dawn, Hellman was gone.
No one has ever found Hellman, but the coastguard found the stolen pieces.
Now, in his second guilty plea of 2018 in the Federal Court, Bennett acknowledges his legal liability as of May 2017.
On Monday, Bennett, 41, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter following the death of Hellman, a US citizen born in Cuba. He will be sentenced on January 10 to eight years or less.
"Lewis Bennett will now be held responsible for the death of his wife on the high seas," said Tom Jones, interim special agent of FBI Miami, in a statement.
The initial charge faced by citizens of dual citizenship in the United Kingdom and Australia was second degree murder on the high seas.
In court records, the investigators put forward a predictable motive: the money and property that Hellman had brought to Bennett's three-month marriage, backed by Bennett requesting a presumptive death certificate just four months later. his disappearance. In Florida, there is a presumption of death after five years.
But Bennett is the only survivor of what happened on May 14, 2017, in the west of Cay Sal Bank, Bahamas. Even the charge for involuntary manslaughter comes as much from his statements to the investigators as from the evidence found, although Bennett admitted facts, but prosecutors have expert testimony that he deliberately sank the boat.
Lewis Bennett
Broward Sheriff's Office
Bennett's admission to court documents ends with an explanation of the charge of manslaughter: he caused him death because he did not do so.
"Ms. Hellman was killed as a result of: (1) Mr. Bennett's knowledge of circumstances that could reasonably have allowed him to foresee the threat to life to which his acts or omissions could be detrimental, namely Ms. Hellman; and (2) his gross negligence, which amounts to total and reckless disregard for human life, acting or failing to act as a result of it. "
Bennett has already served his seven months imprisonment in February after stealing $ 38,480 in gold and silver coins while he was working as a crewman on a boat near Saint John. -Martin in 2016. His boating experience – he was certified Coastal captain by the Royal La Yachting Association in the UK drew suspicions from investigators when Bennett began telling his story after his rescue by the Guard coastal.
As he acknowledges, Bennett was a "competent swimmer", while his wife "was a weak swimmer" and "lacked sailing instructions".
Yet, despite the lifejackets or harnesses of the catamaran, "Neither Mr. Bennett nor his wife used the available safety equipment, and Mr. Bennett, who was captain of the vessel, did not use the safety equipment available," and did not require his wife to wear a lifejacket or harness, even if she was a weak swimmer and an inexperienced sailor, and he did not demand that she do so when she was at the helm of the catamaran. "
Bennett's confession says that on May 14, 2017, he and Hellman had dinner around 8 pm when it was the last leg of a two-week cruise in the Caribbean. Despite Hellman's inexperience and his navigation in perilous waters on the high seas, Bennett asked him to take the watch during his two or three hours of sleep.
He said that a loud noise had woken him in the early hours of May 15. Hellman was not at the top.
Bennett did not launch flares to help him search Hellman or report his position. He did not turn around to look for her. He did not use any devices on hand to signal or ask for help.
What he did: throw a suitcase, two sports bags, a backpack, water, flair, buoys, food and coins into a life raft. Bennett assumed that he had abandoned the ship 45 minutes after he woke up.
Then he called for help and reported the disappearance of his wife.
The coastguard found him at around 4:30 am and looked for him for another three days.
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