Lawyers for boat captain in fatal Bimini crash deny booze use, criticize slow rescue effort

Miami’s Josbel Fernandez was piloting a 32-foot boat that plowed into jagged rocks off the coast of Bimini in July, hurling two passengers off the vessel and to their death.

But lawyers for Fernandez, weeks after families of the dead publicly accused him of boating while drunk, have now responded — and say he wasn’t intoxicated and did everything he could to save Javier Perez and Carolyn Alvarez.

“I feel 100 percent confident that they won’t be able to prove alcohol played a role in this crash. It was not a party night,” said Coral Gables lawyer Yvette Reyes. “This was a very tragic accident for everyone.”

Another of his attorneys, Raul Chacon, said: “We are diligently trying to determine what happened that night.”

Fernandez’s lawyers held a press conference Monday in response to the allegations floated by relatives of Perez and Alavrez, who died July 2 after flying off his boat when it crashed a few miles off the coast of Bimini.

Perez, 29, died after landing on North Turtle Rock, a prominent landmark south of the island. Alvarez, 26, also flew into the sea. She is presumed to have died, and her body has yet to be recovered.

Perez and Alvarez had just met Fernandez, 34, and his girlfriend, Violeta Khouri, 31, at a Bimini beach earlier on the day of the crash. Fernandez invited the pair on the boat for a cruise over to Honeymoon Harbour, a tiny island popular with boaters. After the sun set, the boat crashed as it returned to Bimini.

All four hailed from Miami. Fernandez and Khouri — who suffered a broken back — had to be airlifted to South Florida because of their own injuries.

The Perez and Alvarez families, who are exploring a civil lawsuit against Fernandez, point to a witness that told them in a sworn affidavit that the boat captain was “slurring his words” and appeared drunk during the rescue efforts after the crash.

The witness, Stanley Stuart, had accompanied a friend of Fernandez to help with the sinking boat. Stuart, who repeated the allegations in an interview with the Miami Herald, also said there were “numerous bottles of alcohol and beer” on the deck of the boat after the crash. He said he also told police in the Bahamas the same thing.

But the lawyers painted Stuart as a liar who has been trying to extort money from Fernandez, whom he barely knew from the docks on Bimini. “We believe this gentleman has been misleading this family,” Reyes said.

(Stuart claimed to the Herald that he lost a large wad of cash in the water during the rescue, and Fernandez promised to pay him back the money.)

The Perez and Alvarez families also alleged that Fernandez did not immediately call authorities after the crash, instead calling Stuart and that friend, identified only as Alex.

That’s just not true, said Reyes, who said her client only called his friend because the Bahamian authorities were so slow to respond to a frantic SOS call at 11:08 p.m.

“We don’t know why it took the Bahamian authorities so long to get there,” Reyes said. “They were not rescued until well past 12:30 a.m. There was an hour and half where that boat was drifting.”

The Royal Bahamas Police have declined to answer detailed questions about the crash, citing the open investigation. Police Commissioner Paul Rolle has confirmed that an official inquest will be held into the accident.

This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 4:47 PM.