A dozen Royal Caribbean passengers are suing the cruise line after a former crew member filmed guests in their cabins while they were naked – including children.
The new lawsuit comes just five months after 34-year-old Arvin Joseph Mirasol, the former employee on the ship, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to producing child pornography.
He is once again named in the recent 30-page suit that was filed on behalf of all 12 plaintiffs – each one a US resident – in the Southern District of Florida in Miami on Thursday, USA Today reported.
“The Plaintiffs in this case have suffered physical pain, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental and nervous disorders,” Aronfeld Trial Lawyers, the firm representing the plaintiffs, wrote.
“These injuries are permanent and continuing in nature,”‘ it added. “We demand a judgement for all damages recoverable under the law, including punitive damages and a trial by jury.”
The plaintiffs, who are identified as John, Jane or Junior Doe, had sail dates in both December of 2023 and January of 2024.
They became victims of a disturbing crime while staying in cabins serviced by Mirasol when he worked on the company’s Symphony of the Seas ship prior to his arrest in March of 2024.
Arvin Joseph Mirasol, 34, formerly of Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas
The lawsuit stated that Mirasol was responsible for uploading and/or transmitting images and videos of the victims while they were undressed and engaging in private activities.
Additionally, the suit claimed that he shared the sickening images to the internet – including to the dark web – all without the guest’s knowledge or consent.
“The fact that many of the victims we represent still do not know if and how their images have been used or circulated is incredibly disturbing,” Spencer Aronfeld, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in a news release on Tuesday.
‘Some of the plaintiffs are children – and once an image is on the internet, it is there forever.’
Mirasol, who is a Philippines citizen, additionally faces up to 15 counts of video voyeurism in Broward Circuit Court, CBS News reported.
The 34-year-old man worked for Royal Caribbean from December 1, 2023 until February 26, 2024 as a stateroom attendant – regularly cleaning passenger rooms, restocking towels and changing sheets.
Stateroom attendants on the ship are assigned to a section of 16 to 20 passenger cabins – each room sleeping two to four passengers.
On one of the voyages, a girl found a small camera pointed to the shower when she reached under the sink for toilet paper while on a cruise with her older sister and her mother to Aruba and Curacao, according to the Miami Herald.
The family proceeded to call guest services, which alerted ship security about the incident.
Mirasol was then detained until the ship docked back at Port Everglades in Florida a week later, where he was then arrested on March 3, 2024, CBS News reported.
Law enforcement then seized his electronics – including a USB stick – and found several videos of females undressing in their bathrooms.
One video ‘clearly depicts the defendant installing the camera’ in the bathroom, prosecutors said. ‘The camera is aimed towards the shower.’
Another video appeared to show a 10-year-old girl as she entered the shower, the New York Times reported.
‘The focus of the video was on the children’s genital areas,’ charging documents stated.
There were numerous other videos of children between the ages of two to 17, according to prosecutors.
Mirasol later pleaded guilty to producing child pornography, and admitted to going into passenger’s rooms and hiding under the bed to record people naked.
“If I like who is in that room, I place it,” he allegedly told investigators in regards to his hidden cameras.
He then said that after filming, he would retrieve the cameras and watch the videos while ‘pleasuring himself’, federal prosecutors stated.
Mirasol also acknowledged that he knew videotaping underage girls was illegal, and that he tried to choose females 16 years old and older.
But in a forensic analysis of his devices, Homeland Security Investigations found at least 11 children in his videos, according to the Miami Herald.
“I want to control it, but I can’t,” Mirasol allegedly claimed.
He was finally sentenced on August 28 to 30 years behind bars – the maximum possible sentence he could receive after pleading guilty.
In the immediate aftermath of his arrest, at least 23 people were notified by law enforcement that they were caught in Mirasol’s photographs and videos.
One of the victims proceeded to file a separate class action lawsuit in October of 2024 – seeking damages for passengers on board the ship who were unknowingly photographed and filmed whilst on the February cruise.
The unidentified passenger who filed the October lawsuit said she suffered severe emotional distress – including insomnia, physical pain and dizziness – when she discovered she was photographed.
The suit argued that Royal Caribbean ‘knew or should have known sexual assaults were reasonably foreseeable considering the prevalence of sexual assaults aboard RCCL’s cruise ships,’ pointing to a prior hidden camera incident on another ship in the fleet, the Harmony of the Seas, in 2023.
The suit also claimed that the company failed to provide sufficient security, training or supervision to prevent sexual assaults, and did not notify passengers who stayed in the cabins Mirasol attended to – noting his victims may include up to 960 passengers.
It was determined that throughout his time working on the ship – approximately 12 cruises – he taped a video camera with a memory card in the cabin bathrooms.
The passengers are seeking damages – including both punitive damages and a jury trial – in the new filing.
There were a shocking 131 sex crimes on cruise ships embarking and disembarking guests in the US that were reported to the FBI in 2023, USA Today reported.
Disturbingly, that number rose from the 87 alleged sexual assaults in 2022 along with the 101 in 2019 before the industry shut down during the pandemic.
By KELLY GARINO/DailyMail
