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Grandfather sam anello, who dropped toddler from cruise ship, pleads guilty to homicide.

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The Indiana grandfather accused of fatally dropping his 18-month-old granddaughter from an 11th-floor cruise ship window pleaded guilty to negligent homicide.

Salvatore “Sam” Anello admitted blame in the July 2019 death of Chloe Wiegand after she fell roughly 150-feet from an open window as she slipped from his hands on a Royal Caribbean ship docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The 51-year-old grandpa said earlier this year that he planned to change his earlier not guilty plea to end “this nightmare” for his family.

His lawyer Michael Winkleman said that the plea would be made in exchange for a no-jail-time sentence. Anello — who is set to be sentenced on Dec. 10 — is expected to serve a term of probation from his South Bend, Indiana, home.

“We have found justice for Chloe,” Puerto Rico prosecutor Laura Hernández said.

“This decision was an incredibly difficult one for Sam and the family, but because the plea agreement includes no jail time and no admission of facts, it was decided the plea deal is in the best interests of the family so that they can close this horrible chapter and turn their focus to mourning Chloe and fighting for cruise passenger safety,” Winkleman said in a statement.

Anello has maintained that he didn’t realize the window was open when he raised Wiegand up inside a play area.

“I wasn’t drinking and I wasn’t dangling her out of a window,” he previously said.

The family filed a negligence lawsuit against the Royal Caribbean last year. That case is still ongoing.

“Why in the world did Royal Caribbean allow this window to be opened, without any warning, just steps from a children’s play area, 150 feet off the ground?” Winkleman said.

“Sadly, all of the discovery and evidence taken so far in the case confirms that this was a tragic, preventable accident and that there are absolutely no grounds to bring criminal charges against Sam Anello,” Winkleman’s statement continued.

But the cruise line has said that surveillance video showed Anello leaning out of the window before he lifted the tot for over 30 seconds. The family says Anello wouldn’t have been able to physically lean out that way.

A rep with Royal Caribbean deferred to the prosecutors’ comments adding, “Our thoughts are with the family during this difficult time.”

With Post wires

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Family of toddler who fell from cruise ship speaks out about cause of death

The family of a 1-year-old girl who died after she fell more than 10 stories from a cruise ship in Puerto Rico onto a concrete dock is shedding some light on what happened.

Initial reports from police indicated Chloe Wiegand fell out of her grandfather's arms from aboard the Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas. But her family is disputing that account.

Michael Winkleman, a Miami-based attorney hired by Chloe's family, said her grandfather put the girl on a ledge near a window in a children's area, but was unaware that the window was open.

"Essentially her grandfather lifts her up and puts her on a railing and where he thinks that there is glass there because it's clear, but it turns out there was no glass there," he said. "She goes to bang on the glass like she would have at one of those hockey rinks, and the next thing you know, she's gone."

Winkleman, who said Chloe enjoyed being by windows to see what was happening on the other side, said Royal Caribbean should've known better.

"Why in the world would you leave a window open in an entire glass wall full of windows in a kids area?" he said. "I mean, why would you have that kind of a hidden danger without any warning, without any sign, without any notice?"

Royal Caribbean did not mention any allegations of negligence, saying it is "deeply saddened" and "our hearts go out to the family."

"We've made our Care Team available to assist the family with any resources they need," the company said in a statement . "Out of respect for their privacy, we do not plan to comment further on the incident."

Winkleman said Royal Caribbean is completely at fault.

"I do think there is going to be blame and significant blame on the cruise line, and I will do everything I can to hold them accountable, for what appears to me to be negligence," Winkleman said.

Despite this accident, the Cruise Lines International Association said overboard incidents have decreased 35% over the last decade, even as capacity has increased 55%. About two dozen people fall overboard annually.

The cruise ship has since left for a weeklong trip through the Caribbean, while Chloe's family remains in Puerto Rico as an investigation into her death begins.

Chloe's father is a police officer in South Bend, Indiana. Mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg expressed his condolences, as did the police department.

We are saddened by the terrible accident that took the life of Officer Wiegand’s young daughter, and the city is holding this family in our hearts. https://t.co/suAIxHNn2W — Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) July 9, 2019

"We are saddened by the terrible accident that took the life of Officer Wiegand's young daughter, and the city is holding this family in our hearts," Buttigieg wrote.

Drew Weisholtz is a reporter for TODAY Digital, focusing on pop culture, nostalgia and trending stories. He has seen every episode of “Saved by the Bell” at least 50 times, longs to perfect the crane kick from “The Karate Kid” and performs stand-up comedy, while also cheering on the New York Yankees and New York Giants. A graduate of Rutgers University, he is the married father of two kids who believe he is ridiculous.

Grandfather Who Dropped Toddler Overboard On Cruise Ship To Plead Guilty

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana man charged in his young granddaughter’s fatal fall from a cruise ship’s open window in Puerto Rico agreed to plead guilty in her July 2019 death, explaining that he was doing so “to try to help end part of this nightmare for my family.”

Salvatore “Sam" Anello, who was holding Chloe Wiegand when she slipped from his grasp and fell about 150 feet to her death from an open 11th-floor window on Royal Caribbean Cruises ship, filed change of plea documents Monday in a Puerto Rico court in which he agreed to plead guilty to a negligent homicide charge in the 18-month-old's death, said the family's attorney, Michael Winkleman.

Under the plea agreement, Anello wouldn't serve time behind bars and would serve his probation in Indiana, Winkleman said Wednesday, adding that a hearing in which a judge would consider the plea hadn't been scheduled.

“I took a plea deal today to try to help end part of this nightmare for my family, if possible,” Anello, of Valparaiso, said in his statement. “The support they continue to give me has been beyond overwhelming and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for them.”

Chloe Wiegand fell to her July 8 death from Royal Caribbean Cruises' Freedom of the Seas ship, which was docked in Puerto Rico. Anello was charged last year in Puerto Rico with negligent homicide in her death and initially pleaded not guilty.

Anello, 51, has insisted that he did not know the window was open when he lifted Chloe up to it, saying he did so to allow her to bang on the glass like she did at her brother's hockey games. He told “CBS This Morning” in November that he was trying to stand Chloe on the window’s railing when she fell out of the window. He also said he is colorblind and that may be why he didn’t realize the tinted window was open.

“From my point of view, at the moment the accident happened, it was as if this wall of protective glass disappeared. I was in complete disbelief,” Anello said in Wednesday's statement. “It was a nightmare of the likes I could never have imagined before. I wasn’t drinking and I wasn’t dangling her out of a window. I just wanted to knock on the glass with her as we did together so many times before.”

Chloe Wiegand’s parents sued Royal Caribbean in December , accusing the operator of negligence in her death by allowing the 11th-floor window in the ship’s children's play area to be open.

Winkleman said Anello’s proposed guilty plea in Chloe’s death would have “little or no effect at all on the civil lawsuit,” noting that Anello is not a party to that case

“He’s not a party to that case and therefore it is not relevant,” Winkleman said.

Royal Caribbean Cruises has said in court filings that surveillance video shows that Anello leaned out an 11th-floor window in a children's play area on the ship for about eight seconds before he lifted his granddaughter to the window. Investigators say the girl slipped from Anello's hands and plummeted to her death.

The Granger girl's family, though, claimed in a January court filing responding to the cruise line's allegations that it would have been “physically impossible” for Anello to lean out of that window.

Winkleman said Anello's decision to agree to plea guilty “is in the best interests of the family so that they can close this horrible chapter and turn their focus to mourning Chloe.”

Winkleman said the family would also be focusing on “fighting for cruise passenger safety by raising awareness about the need for all common carriers to adhere to window fall prevention laws designed to protect children from falling from windows."

A message seeking comment on Anello's plea agreement was left Wednesday with a spokeswoman for Royal Caribbean Cruises.

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The overboard deaths of a 7-year-old boy and his mother show the most likely scenario when people fall off cruise ships

• A young boy and his mother both died after going overboard a passenger ferry earlier this month.
• The incident represents the most likely outcome for those who tumble off large boats.
• Only 28% of people who fall off cruise ships are rescued, according to industry data. 

The tragic story of a young boy and his mother who both died after going overboard a large passenger ferry in the Baltic Sea last week is a stark reminder of the final fate that awaits most people who tumble off large boats and into the water.

A 7-year-old Polish boy went overboard a Stena Line ferry transporting passengers from Sweden to Poland last Friday, the ferry company told Insider. His mother jumped into the water to try to rescue him, but neither were recovered from the water alive, according to authorities. 

The international incident had a decidedly darker outcome than a recent overboard occurrence that made headlines when a woman was successfully rescued after she fell from the 10th deck of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship last month and spent nearly an hour in the open water.

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Experts told Insider it was "nothing short of miraculous" that the woman was saved.

The Royal Caribbean rescue in turn recalled the incredible incident in which a man who fell off a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico was successfully rescued after the spent more than 20 hours treading water and eating bamboo to survive. 

But the triumphant tales of water rescues are few and far between.

Of 212 overboard incidents between 2009 and 2019, only 48 — or 28.2% — of those who went overboard were successfully rescued, according to a  report from the Cruise Lines International Association.

In May, a 35-year-old man went overboard a Carnival cruise. The Coast Guard ultimately suspended the search for him after 60 hours.

In 2023 thus far, there have been 10 overboard incidents affecting 11 people, according to  data compiled by Ross Klein , a social work professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, who runs  a cruise safety website. Nine of those eleven people died as a result. 

Despite the headline-grabbing tales of murky seas  and  foul play , overboard incidents remain a real rarity on cruise ships , according to industry data and experts.

In 2019, the last full year of pre-Covid data, 25 people went overboard  according to a 2020 CLIA report . That number includes both passengers and crew members.

Compared to the  more than 13.7 million passengers who boarded a cruise  in the US alone that same year, the likelihood of going overboard clocks in at less than 0.000001%.

Watch: The rise and fall of the cruise industry

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Indiana Toddler Falls to Death From Docked Cruise Ship in San Juan

The 1½-year-old girl from Indiana was reportedly on a family trip when the incident occurred

A baby girl on board a cruise ship docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico died Sunday after she reportedly slipped from her grandfather’s grip and tumbled out an open window.

The incident, which occurred on the Royal Caribbean ship, Freedom of the Seas, was confirmed on Twitter by the Department of Public Safety of Puerto Rico and by Anthony Maceira, Puerto Rico’s Secretary for Public Affairs.

“Unfortunately the news of an accident [involving] a baby on a cruise is true,” Maceira wrote , referring to the incident as “a real tragedy.” “The [Department of Public Safety] is working the issue with the seriousness and sensitivity required.”

A spokesperson for Royal Caribbean also confirmed the incident in a statement to PEOPLE.

“We are deeply saddened by yesterday’s tragic incident, and our hearts go out to the family. We’ve made our Care Team available to assist the family with any resources they need,” the spokesperson said. “Out of respect for their privacy, we do not plan to comment further on the incident.”

RELATED VIDEO: 479 Cruise Passengers Airlifted to Safety After Mayday as ‘Chaos’ Aboard Ship Goes Viral Online

NBC-owned news station Telemundo PR reports that the 1½-year-old girl’s grandfather was holding her and accidentally dropped her from an 11th-story window.

Secretary of Public Security, Elmer Roman, told Primera Hora that the girl, believed to be from Indiana, hit an awning as she fell and eventually landed on the pavement on the Pan American dock in San Juan.

Roman explained that the girl was on a family trip with both her maternal and paternal grandparents, as well as a brother and other relatives.

“It’s a very grave scene, very regrettable and tragic,” he told the outlet, according to CBS News . “One of the grandfathers, whom it would appear was playing with the little girl, lifted her out of the open window and lost his grip.”

Witnesses told Telemundo they heard the anguished cries of her family, and that her mother’s cry did “not compare to any other scream.”

Authorities are reportedly investigating, and will rely on interviews with family members and security camera footage to determine what happened.

According to Seascanner , the ship was leaving Sunday for a seven-day cruise to islands like St. Lucia and Barbados. It is currently in St. Maarten, and scheduled to return to San Juan on July 14.

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1 1/2-pound baby born on cruise ship beats odds to survive

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah woman who unexpectedly gave birth on a cruise ship months before her due date says she wrapped towels around the 1 1/2-pound boy and, with the help of medical staff, managed to keep him alive until the ship reached port.

Emily Morgan, of Ogden, said Thursday that doctors didn’t expect her son Haiden to live, but thanks to strong lungs, a makeshift incubator and an early arrival in Puerto Rico, the baby made it. He’s now receiving care at a neonatal intensive care unit in Miami.

Morgan, 28, said the baby was due in December but contractions began Aug. 31 during a seven-day cruise around the eastern Caribbean. Her doctor approved the cruise to celebrate her daughter’s third birthday, Morgan said.

The pregnancy had been uneventful, so she was shocked when the contractions began just past the halfway mark in her pregnancy. She thought they might be false labor.

But she and her husband called medical staff when they saw blood. A doctor aboard the Royal Caribbean ship told her she couldn’t give birth because they were still 14 hours from the nearest port in Puerto Rico. But holding back wasn’t an option, Morgan said.

“I knew the baby was coming,” she said.

After the delivery, she said the doctors told her she had miscarried and she should get some rest, but she insisted on seeing the baby. About 45 minutes later, medical staff said the baby had survived but wasn’t expected to live long.

“I had felt him kicking. I felt the process of him getting bigger,” she said. “I said, ‘I’m going to see him, I don’t care if he’s alive or if he’s dead.’”

They brought her to her newborn son, who was wrapped in towels wet from the birth. He was wearing a tiny oxygen mask on his face.

“He was crying, like a little feeble cry,” she said. Along with his healthy pink coloring, it was a positive sign that his lungs were relatively strong.

As the hours went on, she insisted he be wrapped in fresh, dry towels, and she helped staff tuck microwaved saline packets around him to create a makeshift incubator. They used a sanitary napkin to keep his head warm and tried to avoid touching his sensitive skin.

Meanwhile, the captain was speeding the boat to Puerto Rico, and it arrived about two hours early. It was none too soon — black spots were starting to appear on Haiden’s fingers, indicating his circulation was starting to fade.

Two ambulances rushed the family to a hospital, and they were transferred to a children’s hospital in Miami a few days later.

Morgan said she was frustrated when officials initially didn’t let her see the baby, but she believes they were just trying to protect her. She added that they have been very responsive in helping her family navigate a difficult situation.

Royal Caribbean officials did not return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Haiden is making good progress, Morgan said. He’s being fed breast milk through a syringe into a tube in his stomach — 2 tablespoons at a time over the course of 90 minutes.

He’s expected to be hospitalized until his Dec. 19 due date. The family hopes Haiden will be strong enough to be transported to a Utah hospital at the end of October and rejoin his 3-year-old sister Chloe, who’s being cared for by her grandparents. The mounting medical bills are an issue for the family, and they are accepting online donations to help pay for the cost of the baby’s premature arrival.

It’s not totally clear what caused Morgan to go into early labor, though doctors have said it might have been related to dehydration, an elevation change or the differing temperatures at sea, she said.

KSL-TV in Salt Lake City was first to report on the birth.

A baby like Haiden born so early and so far from a hospital has a less-than-10 percent chance of survival, said Dr. Bradley Yoder, medical director of the newborn intensive care unit at the University of Utah.

Babies born months premature are typically whisked into intensive care immediately and given medication to help them breathe.

“I’m surprised the baby survived, to be honest,” Yoder said.

Can a Child Fall Overboard on a Cruise Ship?

When parents book a cruise with family members of all ages such as a Disney Cruise, they may be concerned about safety for the little ones, especially if it is their first family cruise. One family was concerned about their active toddler who was constantly "climbing out of his crib, up stairs, up on top of furniture, and basically into trouble all the time." They wondered if he would be safe on an upcoming Disney Cruise. The mom had heard about adults falling overboard on cruise ships and was afraid this active toddler might fall, too.

Family travel experts suggest starting with a reality check. While grown-ups have been known to fall off cruise ships, and it's always a big news story when it happens, it's also an extremely rare occurrence. And that's because it's really, really hard to fall overboard without doing it intentionally or being extremely reckless.

Guardrails and Verandas

The guardrails on most cruise ships are at least 42-inches high, which makes them a challenge for any climbing toddler to scale. On Disney ships, below the top rail are steel fence-style rails covered by a sheet of transparent plexiglass, so there's nothing for little kids to climb on to get high enough to lean over the top rail. This is true of the railings on the ship's public decks as well as the balcony railings in staterooms with verandas.

If your stateroom has a veranda, the door to the balcony is a heavy sliding door with a lock near the top. That lock will be well out of reach for your child. Should the door be left unlocked, the door handle is also child-resistant and a bit tricky to operate. 

The biggest potential danger is that veranda balconies have furniture—typically a low table and two chairs—which a small child could, potentially, push next to the railing and climb upon. Of course, you should never leave a child unsupervised on a balcony. You could also ask your steward to remove the veranda furnishings as an extra precaution. 

If you're still very concerned, the simplest solution is to opt for an exterior stateroom without a veranda or one of Disney's interior staterooms with an ingenious magic porthole, which gives you real-time views of what's happening outside the ship. 

Safety Tips

Nobody should ever leave a small child alone on a balcony or running around a ship's deck unsupervised, but also don't let the fear of your child jumping overboard stand in your way of a truly fabulous cruise on a family-oriented cruise line. Close to half of people cruising, cruise with their children.

Families can add to the safety of their older children on a cruise ship if they follow some commonsense guidelines:

• Teach them to find their way back to the cabin and to follow directions during lifeboat drills
• Don't allow them to swim without adult supervision
• Tell them not to run on deck because when it's wet, it's easy to slip and fall
• Teach them to wash their hands frequently to prevent catching the flu or norovirus

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Grandfather pleads guilty in toddler's death in cruise ship fall

The grandfather of an 18-month-old girl who fell to her death from the open window of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship last year pleaded guilty Thursday to negligent homicide.

The ship had been docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in July 2019, when the toddler, Chloe Wiegand, fell through an 11-story window while she was in the care of her grandfather, Salvatore Anello.

Anello, also known as Sam, was charged in October 2019 by Puerto Rican authorities and initially pleaded not guilty. In February, he said that he was going to plead guilty so his family could begin to move on from the tragedy.

The Puerto Rico Department of Justice said in a statement Thursday that a judge accepted Anello's plea. He will be sentenced Dec. 10.

Michael Winkleman, an attorney for the Wiegand family, said Thursday that the plea deal means that Anello, who lives in South Bend, Indiana, avoids jail time and can serve probation in his home state.

He said the decision to change the plea was "incredibly difficult" for Anello and the family.

"But because the plea agreement includes no jail time and no admission of facts, it was decided the plea deal is in the best interests of the family so that they can close this horrible chapter and turn their focus to mourning Chloe and fighting for cruise passenger safety by raising awareness about the need for all common carriers to adhere to window fall prevention laws designed to protect children from falling from windows," the lawyer said in a statement.

Chloe was with her mother in a children's water park area on the pool's 11th deck. Her mother had to tend to another matter and asked Anello to watch her, according to a lawsuit the family filed in December 2019 against Royal Caribbean Cruises.

The family alleges that the cruise ship company is at fault for Chloe's death, a claim the company has strongly denied . Royal Caribbean did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.

In a July 2019 interview on " TODAY ," Chloe's mother, Kimberly Wiegand, said the cruise line was to blame "for not having a safer situation" on the 11th-floor pool deck.

"There are a million things that could've been done to make that safer," she said. "I know my mom was asking people, 'Why on earth is there a window open on the 11th floor without a screen or anything?'"

The lawsuit said that Anello was "closely supervising" his granddaughter "when Chloe walked over to a nearby wall of glass." Anello followed and put the girl up to the window so she could bang on the glass but she slipped from his hands and fell through the open window.

The lawsuit against the cruise company is ongoing, Winkleman said Thursday, adding that discovery and evidence confirm "this was a tragic, preventable accident" and there were no grounds to bring charges against the grandfather.

Anello has repeatedly said that he did not know the window was open. In an interview last year with CBS, he said that was colorblind and suggested that may have been why he couldn't distinguish between the tinted closed windows and the open window.

But the company has countered that the grandfather "unquestionably" knew the window was open .

In a January court filing responding to the lawsuit, the cruise line included a series of still images that it said were taken from security video and show that Anello knew the window was open before holding his granddaughter up to it.

"When he arrives at the open window, and while Chloe is on the floor, Mr. Anello leans his upper-torso over the wooden railing and out of the window frame for approximately eight seconds," the company said in the court filing. "Because Mr. Anello had himself leaned out the window, he was well aware that the window is open."

Winkleman said the pictures were "misleading."

Minyvonne Burke is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News.

Body found in search for passenger overboard on Pacific Adventure cruise ship due to arrive in Sydney

A body has been found in a large search operation off the coast of Sydney after a man was reported missing off a cruise ship early Monday.

About 10:30am, officers from the Police Marine Area Command retrieved a body from the water. 

The alarm was raised on the P&O vessel Pacific Adventure about 4am when it was about 10 nautical miles, or 18 kilometres, off Sydney Heads.

The ship was due to dock at White Bay Terminal a few hours later but that was delayed as the search was underway.

NSW Police Marine Commander Joseph McNulty earlier said police were hopeful because one of three emergency life rings that had been deployed had not been retrieved, fuelling hope the man may have latched onto it. 

Swells of 4 to 5 metres hindered efforts of rescue teams, which searched a 60-square-nautical-mile area and used infrared technology to search for the man's heat signature. 

A second cruise ship which was in the area has also joined the search. 

Both ships tried to lower life boats in to the water but had to abort due to the rough conditions. 

Family being cared for onboard

At least three police vessels and a number of tug boats were deployed in the search, alongside the Toll rescue helicopter. 

In a statement, P&O said there were more than 2,600 guests still on board the ship, which has now been cleared to return to port in Sydney. 

"Pacific Adventure's next voyage due to depart White Bay this afternoon has been delayed, with the ship expected to leave later tonight on a four-night voyage to Queensland," it said. 

"We thank guests for their care, understanding and patience on what's been a distressing day for guests and crew.

"Our thoughts are with the family of the guest at this difficult time."

Police have launched an investigation into the death and will prepare a report for the coroner. 

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Gambling debt at the core of P&O cruise ship death, claims family

The family of a passenger who fell overboard a P&O ship claim the cruise company lured the man to spend big in the casino with its high-roller incentives before he plunged to his death.

A family holiday turned into a nightmare as Shane Dixon, 50, fell overboard the P&O cruise ship Pacific Adventure off Sydney Heads last week.

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