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3 years’ probation issued in Puerto Rico cruise ship death

This May 11, 2006 photo shows the Freedom of the Seas cruise ship docked in Bayonne, N.J. On Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, Salvatore "Sam" Anello, an Indiana man who was holding his granddaughter before she fell from an open window of the cruise ship and plunged to her death in July 2019 in Puerto Rico, agreed to plead guilty in her death, explaining that he was doing so "to try to help end part of this nightmare for my family." (Mike Derer)
Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A grandfather who pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in the fall of his young granddaughter from an 11th-story window of a cruise ship docked in Puerto Rico was sentenced Monday to three years’ probation, according to justice officials.

Salvatore “Sam” Anello, of Valparaiso, Indiana, had pleaded guilty in the case in October 2020. Defense attorney Michael Winkleman has said Anello would serve probation in his home state.

Anello was aboard the Royal Caribbean Cruises’ Freedom of the Seas ship with family in July 2019 when the death occurred. He has said he did not know the window in the children’s play area was open and that he lifted 18-month-old Chloe Wiegand up to it so she could knock on the glass as she had done at her brother’s hockey games.

The girl’s parents sued Royal Caribbean in a civil case that is still ongoing.