ConchyJoe
Contributor
Continuing sadness for sure, but at least they will be brought to justice.
Scuba Shack's Boat Get Wet Sinks in Key Largo
- Thread starter The Chairman
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
spoolin01
Contributor
Amazing they were able to stay on the lam for two years.
OP
It's been a long time coming for this. I hope the needless tragedy has a final conclusion now.
CajunDiva
Contributor
Amen. I hope this will in some way help to bring peace and closure to your family.
iamrushman
Contributor
my deepest heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Aimee.....
Most likely still pending..
Federal courts can be notoriously slow on cases like this..
Too bad long-term resets don't automatically translate into long-term sentences..
Federal courts can be notoriously slow on cases like this..
Too bad long-term resets don't automatically translate into long-term sentences..
from Pat Rhodes blog:
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Breaking news, and it's not good [/paste:font]
About a year and a half ago, I announced on this blog that the two owners of the Key Largo Scuba Shack - Christopher Jones and Alison Gracey - had finally been arrested on the island of St. Maarten. Of course, the wheels of justice turn very slowly, so additional news had been hard to come by. However, there HAS now been news, and it's not good. Well, actually there was some good news, then bad.
First, the good news. The US petitioned for extradition of Jones and Gracey so they could face charges related to Aimee's death (for those who don't recall, these two are British nationals, not US citizens). The Dutch court in St. Maarten arrested them, seized their passports, and released them on bond based on their lawyer's assurance that they were not a flight risk. Then this past September, the courts finally got around to ruling on extradition, and denied Jones' and Gracey's appeal to block extradition. This, in turn, cleared the way for them to be arrested and returned to the US. Great news, right?
As it turns out, Jones and Gracey, whose passports had been seized, actually WERE a flight risk. Since the Dutch had taken their passports, they simply applied to Britain for new ones. The Brits granted them, and by the time the Dutch authorities came to arrest them to extradite them back to the US, Jones and Gracey had fled St. Maarten. According to the Attorney General's office in Florida, they appear to have moved to France.
Now we will need to start over, petitioning France to extradite them and waiting for that process to run its course all over again.
I accepted a long time ago that these two may never see justice in this lifetime. In order to move on in my own life and build a new life that had joy, I let go of the need to see these two punished for what happened. But don't think for a second that I still wouldn't love for the two of them to see a courtroom someday. And if they do, I'll be there, as will Aimee's mother, brother, and others who loved her.
That possibility, however, now seems a lot more remote.
Posted by Pat Rhoads at 9:41 A
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Breaking news, and it's not good [/paste:font]
About a year and a half ago, I announced on this blog that the two owners of the Key Largo Scuba Shack - Christopher Jones and Alison Gracey - had finally been arrested on the island of St. Maarten. Of course, the wheels of justice turn very slowly, so additional news had been hard to come by. However, there HAS now been news, and it's not good. Well, actually there was some good news, then bad.
First, the good news. The US petitioned for extradition of Jones and Gracey so they could face charges related to Aimee's death (for those who don't recall, these two are British nationals, not US citizens). The Dutch court in St. Maarten arrested them, seized their passports, and released them on bond based on their lawyer's assurance that they were not a flight risk. Then this past September, the courts finally got around to ruling on extradition, and denied Jones' and Gracey's appeal to block extradition. This, in turn, cleared the way for them to be arrested and returned to the US. Great news, right?
As it turns out, Jones and Gracey, whose passports had been seized, actually WERE a flight risk. Since the Dutch had taken their passports, they simply applied to Britain for new ones. The Brits granted them, and by the time the Dutch authorities came to arrest them to extradite them back to the US, Jones and Gracey had fled St. Maarten. According to the Attorney General's office in Florida, they appear to have moved to France.
Now we will need to start over, petitioning France to extradite them and waiting for that process to run its course all over again.
I accepted a long time ago that these two may never see justice in this lifetime. In order to move on in my own life and build a new life that had joy, I let go of the need to see these two punished for what happened. But don't think for a second that I still wouldn't love for the two of them to see a courtroom someday. And if they do, I'll be there, as will Aimee's mother, brother, and others who loved her.
That possibility, however, now seems a lot more remote.
Posted by Pat Rhoads at 9:41 A
FL-Jack
Registered
Unbelievably these people have just been captured again, this time by America's Most Wanted.
Dive-boat fugitives caught on TV - Divernet
"A British couple who became fugitives 10 years ago following the death of a scuba diver on their Florida charter-boat have been captured by police in Spain.
Their arrest came within four days of the pair featuring on America’s Most Wanted, a newly revived Fox TV series that had last been on air the same year that they had evaded a US indictment.
Alison Gracey, 53, and Christopher Jones, 56, have now been arrested in Madrid and, according to Fox, are being held on charges of involuntary manslaughter and making a false official statement.
Gracey and Jones ran a dive-charter company called Key Largo Scuba Shack in the Florida Keys. On 18 December, 2011 Aimee Rhoads, a 36-year-old diver on holiday from Seattle, booked a trip on their 9m boat Get Wet.
Carrying six passengers including Rhoads and her sister-in-law, Get Wet was heading towards its second Molasses reef dive-site in heavy seas when it began taking on water. Witnesses on another dive-boat nearby said that the vessel sank within two minutes. Rhoads and another diver, Amit Rampurkar, were trapped in the cabin.
Get Wet captain John Nathaniel dived to retrieve the divers, bringing up Rampurkar first before returning for Rhoads. Both had been unconscious. The other dive-boat picked everyone up but Rhoads could not be resuscitated"
Dive-boat fugitives caught on TV - Divernet
"A British couple who became fugitives 10 years ago following the death of a scuba diver on their Florida charter-boat have been captured by police in Spain.
Their arrest came within four days of the pair featuring on America’s Most Wanted, a newly revived Fox TV series that had last been on air the same year that they had evaded a US indictment.
Alison Gracey, 53, and Christopher Jones, 56, have now been arrested in Madrid and, according to Fox, are being held on charges of involuntary manslaughter and making a false official statement.
Gracey and Jones ran a dive-charter company called Key Largo Scuba Shack in the Florida Keys. On 18 December, 2011 Aimee Rhoads, a 36-year-old diver on holiday from Seattle, booked a trip on their 9m boat Get Wet.
Carrying six passengers including Rhoads and her sister-in-law, Get Wet was heading towards its second Molasses reef dive-site in heavy seas when it began taking on water. Witnesses on another dive-boat nearby said that the vessel sank within two minutes. Rhoads and another diver, Amit Rampurkar, were trapped in the cabin.
Get Wet captain John Nathaniel dived to retrieve the divers, bringing up Rampurkar first before returning for Rhoads. Both had been unconscious. The other dive-boat picked everyone up but Rhoads could not be resuscitated"
Let's just hope they have the book thrown at them.. I'd like to think them hoodwinking the Dutch while out on bond will give them even more time to enjoy our federal prison system, as well as any other. I am curious to know what they've been up to while on the run. New dive related dive business?
Similar threads
