Cruise ship captain pleads guilty
The former captain of a cruise ship pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to one count of operating a vessel under the influence of alcohol. He was sentenced to one year of probation and fined $15,000.
Periklis Petridis, 47, was arrested May 19 when Coast Guard officials making a routine check of the 866-foot Celebrity Cruise Line ship Mercury discovered he had been drinking.
He failed four breath tests, with a blood-alcohol level as high as 0.18, federal prosecutors said. The legal federal maritime limit is 0.04.
In addition to the fine, U.S. Magistrate Judge James P. Donohue ordered Petridis, a Greek citizen, not to enter U.S. waters as an employee of a commercial vessel without the approval of the Department of Homeland Security for one year.
Celebrity Cruise Line fired him following his arrest.
Retirement home fire called accidental
A fire that killed one resident at a north Seattle retirement home was accidental, fire officials said.
The three-alarm fire at the Four Freedoms retirement home started Sunday on a stove in the 310-unit, seven-story building, Seattle Fire spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said.
Damage was estimated at $800,000.
Eight other residents had to be taken to the hospital Sunday. Most of the injured suffered from “shortness-of-breath-type symptoms,” Fitzpatrick said.
Residents of the sixth and seventh floors were not allowed to return to their homes due to fire damage, and the Red Cross was called in to help approximately 80 people find alternative shelter.
Those living on floors one through five were staying in their apartments unless there was excessive water damage.
CHEHALIS, Wash.
Language barrier hinders prosecution
Lewis County is having trouble prosecuting a vehicular homicide suspect from Guatemala, partly because he speaks only a Mayan dialect called Mam.
Two translators were needed for Friday’s competency hearing – one to translate from Mam to Spanish and the other to translate from Spanish to English.
Rene Ramirez-Perez, 20, faces two counts of vehicular homicide for a crash in December that killed two people, including his brother.
Ramirez-Perez was evaluated at Western State Hospital, which found he did not understand what was happening to him.
The judge ordered another 60-day evaluation at the mental hospital. If Ramirez-Perez is found incompetent the charges will likely be dismissed and he would be deported to Guatemala, defense lawyer Jonathon Meyer said.
TACOMA
280 goats hired for five-day park cleanup
Tacoma Metro Parks has hired a herd of goats to clean up overgrown brush at Blueberry Park.
Metro Parks paid Craig Madsen $3,000 to bring 280 goats from Lincoln County to spend five days munching Scotch broom, ivy and blackberry tangles.
The goats are contained to three acres by an electrified fence, and Madsen and his border collie, Mac, shepherd the herd.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Listing ship salvage team member dies
A member of a salvage team looking at how to stabilize a listing ship in the Aleutian Islands died when he lost his footing, slid down the ship’s deck and hit his head, the Coast Guard said Monday.
The four-member salvage team was getting ready to leave the Cougar Ace on Sunday when the naval architect slipped and was knocked unconscious. Efforts to revive him aboard the ship failed. He was flown to a nearby Coast Guard ship with a surgeon and a clinic, but was declared dead about an hour later.
The team had just completed an internal survey of the ship when the accident occurred, said Charles Nalen, of Crowley Maritime, owner of Titan Salvage.
The naval architect was from Seattle and one of the company’s most experienced employees, Nalen said. His name was being withheld until relatives could be notified.