Florida casino shuttle boat bursts into flames, leaving 1 dead
by Alex Johnson and Kalhan Rosenblatt
One person died after dozens of people jumped more than 10 feet into frigid winter waters after the shuttle ferrying them to a casino ship off the Florida Gulf Coast caught fire, authorities said Monday.
All 50 passengers aboard made it to shore Sunday, the Coast Guard told NBC News on Sunday night. One woman died after she arrived at a hospital emergency room, said Kurt Conover, a spokesman for Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point.
The 42-year-old woman died at 10:42 p.m. ET, said Kevin Doll, a spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.
The woman went to the ER hours after the fire occurred, Conover said. Her name wasn't been released, and a cause of death hadn't been determined.
Eight other passengers were treated at and released from Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point, Conover said. In total, about 15 people were treated at hospitals for minor injuries and as a precaution for hypothermia, police said.
The shuttle caught fire at about 3:30 p.m. ET Sunday as it was making its way to the Tropical Breeze Casino Cruise, according to Beth Fifer, the casino's assistant chief executive.
Port Richey Police Chief Gerard DeCanio said the captain saw smoke from the engine and turned the boat around. Then he started having engine trouble, said DeCanio, who said the captain had been reporting engine trouble before Sunday.
DeCanio said there was no suspicion of foul play.
A boat burns Sunday after it caught fire while ferrying patrons to a casino ship off the Florida Gulf Coast. AP
Fifer said it was the first such incident since the shuttle began operating in 1995. Shuttles are needed to ferry customers to the casino, which operates in the Gulf of Mexico because it's not allowed on land in Florida.
Qaadia Culbreath was on board preparing to celebrate his upcoming 30th birthday when the fire broke out. Culbreath, who said he doesn't know how to swim, told NBC News affiliate WFLA that he didn't see any life jackets when the fire began to spread and was told to jump.
“The guy that was in the water said, ‘Man, jump, jump, jump.’ I was like, ‘Man, I can’t swim.’ So I was trying to climb off, and I was dangling off the metal hanger in the front of the boat because I didn’t want to let go,” Culbreath said.
As the boat headed to shore, Culbreath was able to navigate the shallow water to safety.
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By Zachary T. Sampson
Times Staff Writer
Long before a shuttle ship from Tropical Breeze Casino caught fire Sunday off the coast of Port Richey, leaving one passenger dead, the company behind the operation was a source of controversy.
The casino operator went by various names over the years — SunCruz, Paradise, Pair-A-Dice, Port Richey Casinos — but was consistently a major player in tiny Port Richey, where founders Alex and Mollie Kolokithas wielded heavy influence in local government. They also were connected to the larger gambling boat operation SunCruz, which was run by a millionaire who was later killed by a mob hitman in South Florida as his sale of the company devolved.
A spokeswoman for Tropical Breeze could not be reached Tuesday morning.
Early on, the Kolokithases worked under the umbrella of SunCruz, run in the late 1990s by South Florida millionaire and Miami Subs founder Gus Boulis. He sold the company for $147.5 million in 2000 in a deal that quickly grew contentious.
Boulis, 51, was shot and killed by a hitman in 2001. The sale later led to the imprisonment of Jack Abramoff, a former influential lobbyist and one of the buyers of SunCruz, who pleaded guilty to fraud.
The Kolokithases, who had leased SunCruz boats in exchange for sharing dock space in Tampa Bay with Boulis — ultimately splitting the profits — continued in the offshore gambling business undeterred. They fought over their right to use the SunCruz name in court with the company’s new owners while at the same time breaking off the business relationship.
In 2003, the family was at the center of a fierce debate in Port Richey over a bingo ordinance, which cropped up after the Kolokithases opened a bingo hall. The ordinance allowed commercial operators to run games all week, overriding restrictions from county law. The City Council ultimately voted to repeal it.
The next year, the casino operation was called Paradise of Port Richey when one of its shuttle boats caught on fire. It had just dropped off 78 passengers, and the captain and two crew members were rescued by a passing boat. The National Transportation Safety Board later determined the fire was started by a faulty fuel line, which would have been detected if the business had a preventative maintenance program.
In 2008, the gambling boat company ran afoul of state environmental investigators, who suspected the big ships were cutting up sea grass beds offshore.
The Kolokithases started their business out of almost nothing in the mid-1990s. They had operated a gambling boat in Texas, which was shut down by a bankruptcy court in 1992. They turned to Florida and launched the Mr. Lucky gaming boat in Tarpon Springs.
Mollie Kolokithas’ brother, Floyd Howard, told the Tampa Bay Times in 1998 that they were so cash-strapped, they had to scrape together gas money.
"The first lemons, limes and oranges that were put on the first Mr. Lucky cruise were bought with Mollie Kolokithas’ food stamps," he said at the time.
In 2002, when the Kolokithases had moved on to Port Richey and were trying to collaborate with local government, Mollie Kolokithas told a Times reporter they wanted "immortality" in the small city.
An obituary shows she died in 2015.
But state corporate filings for Tropical Breeze Casino Cruz, LLC show the business remains in the family, and in Port Richey, with Alex Kolokithas as manager.==================
PORT RICHEY, FL — As the boat disappeared in smoke and flames Sunday, as people leaped into the cold waters below, the neighborhood rallied. Residents helped the survivors ashore, gave them blankets and opened their homes to keep them warm.
The neighbors of Harborpointe Drive felt good that they were able to save about 50 lives.
Their joy ended Monday when they learned that one of the passengers died that night.
She was Carrie Dempsey, a 42-year-old mother of two from Lutz, according to the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner’s Office.
She was pronounced dead at 10:42 p.m. Sunday while being treated at Bayonet Point Regional Medical Center.
News of her death spread Monday morning through texts between neighbors.
"Today it hurt me because I felt like everything worked out for everybody and nobody got hurt," Larry Santangelo, 57, said. "Then you hear that and it’s disappointing, actually very depressing."
That grim news was the only development reported by officials a day after the harrowing boat fire. A phalanx of agencies launched investigations to determine what caused the fire and Dempsey’s death.
Many other questions remain unanswered, such as: How many people remained hospitalized? What condition were they in? What was the safety history of the boat and its crew?
The Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office and the Medical Examiner all launched investigations.
The boat was operated by Tropical Breeze Casino Cruise. Spokeswoman Beth Fifer said Monday she had spoken to Dempsey’s father.
"We are just deeply saddened by the loss of that passenger and about any pain or trouble that has been caused to our passengers relating to this incident," she said.
Fifer said she did not know what went wrong with the vessel but it had been inspected by the Coast Guard.
"If we had any type of idea that there was a problem, we wouldn’t have left the dock," she said. "There was no inkling that there was any problems with that vessel whatsoever."
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The boat was called the Island Lady, a 72-foot wooden-hulled T-boat, according to the Coast Guard. It was shuttling passengers to a casino boat in the Gulf of Mexico, where gambling is legal in international waters.
The shuttle is scheduled to depart at 3:30 p.m. every Sunday. Port Richey police said it was heading out to the gulf when the captain noticed there was something wrong with the engine and turned the boat around about 4 p.m.
"When he turned around to come in, that’s when it started to catch fire," said Port Richey police Sgt. Gary Lush.
The vessel was in the Pithlachascotee River, but police said the captain — who was not identified — knew that it was low tide and the passengers could walk to shore. The captain came within 100 yards of land.
"He knew if he got close enough to shore that they could jump out," Lush said. "It was mucky, knee-deep water."
The flames breached the stern, forcing the passengers to the bow. The residents of Harborpointe Drive watched in horror as the 50 or so passengers and crew jumped ship.
"They didn’t have much time to decide whether or not to jump," Bakr Jandali, 19, said Sunday. "The fire was moving fast. It was a hard jump."
That’s because it was still about 12 feet from the deck into the shallow water. They waded waist-deep in the cold water to shore.
Port Richey police officers arrived and helped residents rescue about a dozen people still in the water. Others cared for those who made it ashore.
Christine Hashim on Monday returned to the shore where she waded into the water to help. Scattered on the sand and up the steps to the street were clothing, shoes, socks, a prescription bottle. She gathered the items around sunrise Monday, just in case the owners want them back.
"They were really cold and very scared," Hashim, 50, said.
Officials said about 15 people complained of chest pain, smoke inhalation and other minor injuries as a result of the fire. There were also concerns about hypothermia after they waded in cold water on a chilly day in Florida, with temperatures in the 50s.
It took a county bus to get everyone to the hospital. None of the other passengers were identified Monday, and no information was released about their medical conditions.
• • •
Dempsey left behind two young children. Her husband, Joseph Dempsey II, died at the age of 33 in 2011, according to records.
Her family declined to speak to a Tampa Bay Times reporter.
Coast Guardsmen inspected the boat on Monday morning.
A small boat took four of them to the burned-out remains. Onlookers came by the cul-de-sac to get a glimpse of what was left of the vessel.
There was barely anything left of the boat above the waterline. An American flag, the only thing to survive the fire, waved from the bow.
The guardsmen boarded the charred boat, took photographs and left. They declined to comment.
Coast Guard spokesman Michael De Nyse said the agency could not comment about fire while the investigation is ongoing.
Another Tropical Breeze boat caught fire in 2004. Fifer said the NTSB ruled it was a repair issue.
"We intend to cruise again," she said.