Facing a lawsuit from the family of atoddler girl who fell to her death out of a cruise shipwindow last July, Royal Caribbean moved to dismiss the case, saying in court documents that blame for the tragedy lies with the child’s grandfather.
Eighteen-month-oldChloe Wiegandfell more than 10 stories from a window in a children’s play area on a Royal Caribbean cruise. Her grandfather,Salvatore Anello, who was holding her up on a railing adjacent to the large open window before she fell, has since been charged with negligent homicide in Puerto Rico, where the tragedy took place.
In December, the family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Royal Caribbean. The family’s attorney, Michael Winkleman, previously told PEOPLE, “The windows were not compliant with window-fall prevention codes, designed to prevent children from falling out of windows.”
Winkleman has said Anello put Chloe up on a wood railing beside what he thought was a wall of closed windows, unaware that a sliding window was open. Winkleman said Chloe liked to bang on glass panels at her older brother’s hockey games, and when she went to bang on what appeared to be closed windows, she fell.
“Because Mr. Anello had himself leaned out the window, he was well aware that the window was open,” the motion said. “In addition, the windows in question consist of greenish-tinted glass making it open and obvious where a window is open versus closed.”
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“There was no ‘hidden danger’ — Mr. Anello knew the window was open,” the motion added.
Winkleman has previously claimed the opposite: that the video exonerates Anello because it shows he believed the window was closed.
According to Winkleman, all windows comprising the wall were closed except for the one in question.
Winkleman also said there was a significant enough distance between the railing and the window so that Anello, who is seen leaning over the railing in the video before Chloe fell, wouldn’t necessarily have known it was open.
The video “is consistent with [Anello’s] version of events since day one,” Winkleman said.
Chloe Wiegand.Facebook
In a November interview withCBS This Morning, Anello described his emotions after Chloe’s fall.
“I remember trying to find her on the floor and then I saw her fall, I saw her fall, I saw her fall and I was just in disbelief,” he said. “And I was like ‘Oh my God.’ And I think for a while I was in shock and I was just standing there.”
“And then I just remember screaming that I thought there was glass. I thought there was glass. I still say it to myself, it’s just, I kind of relive it all the time and I just thought there was glass there. I don’t know what else to tell you,” he said.
“He was extremely hysterical. The thing that he has repeatedly told us is,‘I believed that there was glass,’” Kimberly said. “He will cry over and over and over. At no point ever — ever — has [he] ever put our kids in danger.”
In December,Anello’s defense attorney Jose Perez told CBShis client was offered a plea deal but didn’t accept it because he wants to clear his name.
“It’s firm that he is innocent and he does not want to plea,” Perez said, though he added that Anello was considering the deal.
In a statement to PEOPLE issued after the original publication of this article, Winkleman said:
source: people.com
