Kevin O’Leary on Boat Involved in Fatal Crash on Lake Joseph

[explorerzip]

Kevin isn’t apart of this so it is not the “O’Leary’s” walking on this.

The question is did SHE kill two people or did the negligent second boat owner kill the 2 people?

If the latter, should the other guy be charged with negligent homicide? Do we have that in Canada? I don’t know. We have to something similar.

If the lights were off, she had no way to see that boat. No way at all. There are two boats involved in this accident and just because she drove hers into the other, it doesn’t automatically make her the assailant. There is causing someone’s death by mistake but this would be here causing death by an impossible to change event. So it was up to someone to decide that and charge her under what they felt they could prove.

Exactly. There are reasons why she was charged under the Canada Shipping Act and not the Highway Traffic Act, etc.

 

[Uncharted]

Exactly. There are reasons why she was charged under the Canada Shipping Act and not the Highway Traffic Act, etc.

Well, she can't be charged under the Highway traffic act because this was a boating accident. So she would have been charged under the shipping act, as this act deals with recreational boating in Canada.

I just think she was incorrectly charged. Was the other boat operator charged with anything?
And if not, then this was a blatant move to make an example out of the O'Learys to overtly paint the impression of not favouring their social status.

How can a vessel be anchored without any sort of anchor light at all, and the operator not be charged with anything under the shipping act?

 

[explorerzip]

Well, she can't be charged under the Highway traffic act because this was a boating accident. So she would have been charged under the shipping act, as this act deals with recreational boating in Canada.

I just think she was incorrectly charged. Was the other boat operator charged with anything?
And if not, then this was a blatant move to make an example out of the O'Learys to overtly paint the impression of not favouring their social status.

How can a vessel be anchored without any sort of anchor light at all, and the operator not be charged with anything under the shipping act?

If there are grounds to charge under the HTA, then I'm sure they would have. We have no idea of The parties involved were charged correctly or not. That's the court's job to find out.

 

[poker]

This is exactly the kind of debate that will let them walk.

I’ll even bet money on it.

She should walk... she hit a boat that turned their lights out. If the other had their lights on... no accident.

Sometimes it really is that simple.

 

[Ref]

There was footage of the boats leaving the docks and footage showing the lights moving across the lake. Have they withheld the footage of the boats returning to the docks?

 

[anonemouse]

Well, she can't be charged under the Highway traffic act because this was a boating accident. So she would have been charged under the shipping act, as this act deals with recreational boating in Canada.

I just think she was incorrectly charged. Was the other boat operator charged with anything?
And if not, then this was a blatant move to make an example out of the O'Learys to overtly paint the impression of not favouring their social status.

How can a vessel be anchored without any sort of anchor light at all, and the operator not be charged with anything under the shipping act?

The other person was charged with not having lights on. They pled guilty already. Maybe read the article first.

 

[mandrill]

1007 No person shall operate a vessel in a careless manner, without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other persons.

This appears to be the charge.

I am guessing that the evidence will be that the O'Learys knew that there were other, unlit vessels star-gazing and did not operate their vessel dead slow and hail or sound the horn in order to alert other vessels to announce their presence and light up.

Simple negligence is enough for a conviction on the offence. No one cares about the conviction and O' Leary could pay the fine with his eyes closed and his dick out. But it's a precursor to MASSIVE civil suits.

All a civil court judge has to find is 1% negligence for the deaths and the O' L's are on the hook for 100% of the damages, if the other boater is impecunious. Those damages could run into MILLIONS of $$$$$$.

There would NOT be punitive or exaggerated damages in a negligence lawsuit. But wrongful death normally includes having to compensate the dead folks' kids for ALL THE MONEY THE DECEDENTS WOULD HAVE EARNED THE REST OF THEIR LIVES!!!!! It's open-ended and HUGE!!!!

As well, there is emotional loss to the relatives.

 

[JackBurton]

She should walk... she hit a boat that turned their lights out. If the other had their lights on... no accident.

Sometimes it really is that simple.

That’s why accidental death is called manslaughter.

she still killed two people.

she will still walk.

 

[mandrill]

That’s why accidental death is called manslaughter.

she still killed two people.

she will still walk.

It's not manslaughter. It's negligence. Big diff.

 

[JackBurton]

It's not manslaughter. It's negligence. Big diff.

The only difference is she will walk and the common person wouldn’t.

Money buys you influence

 

[Goodoer]

The only difference is she will walk and the common person wouldn’t.

Money buys you influence

In fairness, the common person would not be paying millions or having their trial publicized. Money buys attention as well.

 

[Goodoer]

The Defense Lawyers already have the OPP Investigator back-tracking on his speed estimates...

Is 25 km/h too fast? What about if they had full functioning GPS following a plotted route? Is that negligence?***

Its a horrible disaster. Whether they are stargazers or walleye fishermen, you have to have your lights on.

(*** I'm actually curious... I have a boat and fish. When it even hints at being dark, my lights are all on. I do travel at a snail's pace if I don't know the area.)

 

[mandrill]

The only difference is she will walk and the common person wouldn’t.

Money buys you influence

No.

 

[Uncharted]

The other person was charged with not having lights on. They pled guilty already. Maybe read the article first.

Then if that is the case, and they plead guilty to it, then that is the end of it. They admitted they didn't have lights on. Operating a vessel with reasonable consideration for other people does not extend to consideration for people not following the laws, and actively hiding their very presence. In fact that would be the exact opposite of reasonable.

This only goes to prove my point. If the other operator admitted to not having lights on, O'Leary shouldn't have even been charged.
The Negligence was on the part of the person operating a vessel, at night without any lights. They are the one responsible for 2 people's death.

 

[GameBoy27]

This is very telling and makes you wonder why Linda was even charged in the first place. In what way was she being careless in the operation of her boat?

MANDEL: Unlit boat involved in O'Leary crash impossible to see in OPP simulation.

The police knew it was there; the experiment had been carefully planned.

And still, with its lights off in the middle of Lake Joseph, the Super Air Nautique was virtually impossible to see in the blackness of the summer night — so much so that a police boat almost ran into it as well.

Almost two weeks after the boat driven by Linda O’Leary slammed into the Super Air Nautique, killing two of its passengers, the OPP were trying to reenact the collision by experimenting with what they could see when the large wakeboard boat was illuminated by its lights and what they could see when it was not.

O’Leary insisted the other boat was unlit at the time of the fatal Aug. 24, 2019 crash that killed American Gary Poltash and Uxbridge mother Suzana Brito. The driver and passengers of the luxury Super Air Nautique, who had been out stargazing on the Muskoka lake, told police that wasn’t the case.

OPP Const. Schone Tarrant was on the OPP marine unit vessel, which was simulating the O’Leary speedboat, when he shot the reenactment video at about 10:30 p.m. on Sept. 5, 2019. The stars were out but it was “still very dark,” he recalled. “It’s very difficult to see.”

As the video played in the Parry Sound court, the police harbour craft could be seen heading into darkness, save for two bright lights in the distance that were shining from the O’Learys’ cottage boathouse.

“You don’t know what hazards are in the water so we’re just taking our time to get there,” Tarrant explained.

Then suddenly, the footage captured the police boat passing so close to the dark Super Air Nautique that he could have reached out and touched it.

“My heart still races when I see it,” the officer admitted. “We came rather close to colliding with that vessel in the dark.”

As a result, the police decided not to continue their simulation, he said, because it was too dangerous.

Yet it was after the re-enactment that the officer in charge of the investigation decided to lay charges.

Det.-Const. Sean Richardson charged Dr. Richard Ruh, the driver of the Air Nautique, with operating a boat without lights; and O’Leary with careless operation of a vessel under the Canada Shipping Act because he felt that even unlit, she should have been able to avoid hitting the other boat.

O’Leary, the wife of Shark Tank celebrity and millionaire businessman Kevin O’Leary, has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, she faces a maximum $10,000 fine.

Ruh, who lives in Buffalo, testified he paid his $125 ticket because it was growing too expensive to fight it. But he still maintained the lights were on.

If the police themselves believed Ruh and his 11 passengers were out in the dark lake without any illumination, it’s hard to understand what O’Leary could have done to avoid hitting a virtually invisible object.

Was she driving too fast? They don’t know.

OPP video forensic analyst Dan Murphy was tasked with examining surveillance videos seized after the collision – one that showed the O’Learys leaving a friend’s dock at about 11:26 p.m. following a cottage dinner party and the other from the couple’s opulent boathouse that showed the collision in the distance about four minutes later.

Murphy agreed under cross-examination that the videos show the O’Learys’ boat is the only one with its lights on and the Super Air Nautique isn’t visible until 49 seconds after the impact.

Based on the videos, he had been asked to estimate the speed of the O’Leary boat before the collision but told the court that it was impossible to do. Without being able to calculate the exact route and distance it travelled when it was off-screen, Murphy said, the videos couldn’t help them estimate how fast she was going.

The trial continues.

https://terb.cc/xenforo/threads/kevin-o’leary-on-boat-involved-in-fatal-crash-on-lake-joseph.685452/page-7

 

[GameBoy27]

I read that his wife is being charged under the Canada Shipping Act. That’s a pretty slippery move, ballsy too since the stiffest penalty is just a fine.

Rich people walk. They always do, that’s why they pay millions for the best lawyers.

it’s a shitty system we live in. A gross injustice will be done when the case is dismissed on a technicality.

You hate rich people. We get it. But just for fun, try looking at this case based on the actual evidence.

 

[anonemouse]

You hate rich people. We get it. But just for fun, try looking at this case based on the actual evidence.

They would rather just keep moving the goalposts instead of actually reading the article.

 

[danmand]

No.

Money buys lawyers.

 

[mandrill]

Money buys lawyers.

Sure it does. And BIG money buys big time lawyers with lots of resources and teams of well qualified juniors and experts. It's not an even playing field.

But the well-paid rich man's lawyer still has to go out and win the case. And that means evidence and a legal theory that will be successful. All the Bay Street law firms in the city can't win a case where the Crown's evidence is ample and solid and the contravention clearly demonstrated.

 

[unassuming]

Linda O'Leary found not guilty of carelessly operating a vessel.