Boat captain who ignored faulty propeller warnings heading to prison for diver's drowning

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6 days ago

WEST PALM BEACH — A boat captain whose spinning propeller pulled a diver under during a 2020 scuba trip will spend more than eight years in prison for her death.
Jurors convicted Dustin McCabe, 49, of seaman's manslaughter in March. Prosecutors said McCabe signaled for divers Sean Flynn and Mollie Ghiz-Flynn to reboard the boat after a paid diving excursion, unaware the boat's propeller was still spinning. The blades pulled Ghiz-Flynn beneath the stern, sliced into her legs and trapped her underwater, where she drowned.
McCabe claimed she was caught in rough currents, and that he had no knowledge of his boat's mechanical issues. Witnesses who testified at his criminal trial in March said the opposite was true.
According to court records, the fatal dive on March 29, 2020, was McCabe's third outing aboard the Southern Comfort, a fishing vessel he'd recently converted into a dive boat. The incident happened 3 miles south of the Palm Beach Inlet, near The Breakers hotel. Jurors heard about a series of safety failures the previous day, including a near-identical incident in which another diver was nearly pulled into the propellers and injured.
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That diver, Jennifer Hester, said she escaped the spinning blades by pushing her speargun into the propellers and pushing herself away. That same day, the vessel lost reverse propulsion, nearly collided with a bridge and ran aground — incidents McCabe failed to report to the Coast Guard.
Despite Hester's plea that McCabe postpone further trips until he addressed the boat's safety issues, McCabe and his company proceeded with the charter the next day.
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Federal authorities charged McCabe not only for Ghiz-Flynn's subsequent death but also for a series of fraudulent pandemic loan applications he filed afterward.
In the months after the incident, prosecutors said McCabe filed fraudulent applications for COVID-19 relief under the Paycheck Protection Program, falsely claiming his dive business was still operational.
Court records show he used loan proceeds for personal expenses, including an $8,700 membership at PGA National Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens. He later claimed the golf membership was necessary for his business and was paid for with a motorcycle crash settlement.
His ex-wife and former accountant testified the business had no payroll, contradicting the figures McCabe submitted to banks. When questioned, McCabe said he simply followed the advice of bank employees in preparing the forms.
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Jurors convicted him of all charges, paving the way for an Aug. 6 sentencing hearing in front of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. There, Terrence O'Sullivan, McCabe's Rockledge-based defense attorney, described Ghiz-Flynn's death as a tragic accident, pointed to McCabe's lack of criminal history and asked Cannon to sentence him to no more than four years and three months in prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Keller recommended a sentence of six years and six months, accusing the boat captain of lying under oath and showing no remorse for his actions.
"That lack of remorse bled through not just his demeanor during the gut-wrenching testimony that it took to convict him, but also through his own testimony, in which he told lie after lie in a desperate — but unsuccessful — attempt to avoid prison," the prosecutor said.
Cannon agreed. She sentenced McCabe to eight years and four months in federal prison, beating even what prosecutors had sought.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at [e-mail].
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Boat captain who ignored propeller problems sentenced in diver's death