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Yusiel Lopez Insua, 46, pleaded guilty to seaman’s manslaughter
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Yusiel Lopez Insua pleaded guilty to seaman’s manslaughter after a 2025 crash killed three girls near Miami Beach
Prosecutors are recommending a sentence of one year in prison and six months of home detention as part of a plea deal
Investigators said Insua was using his cellphone during the crash and failed to assign a lookout on his tugboat
A Florida tugboat captain whose vessel struck a sailboat, killing three young girls last summer, has pleaded guilty.
Yusiel Lopez Insua was federally charged with seaman’s manslaughter earlier this year in connection with the July 2025 incident near Miami Beach, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
He initially pleaded not guilty before changing his plea to guilty on Tuesday, July 21, according to CBS and the Miami Herald.
The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. However, a deal — reportedly approved by the victims’ families — was reached with prosecutors. As part of that deal, prosecutors are recommending Insua serve a year behind bars, plus six months of home detention, the outlets reported, citing court documents.
Insua’s attorney, Walter A. Reynoso, told Local 10 News that his client “will not put the families through a trial and expose them to relive this terrible tragedy.”
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“He feels awful,” Reynoso added, per CBS. “He feels awful about the unimaginable pain and loss suffered by the three families who lost three very young daughters.”
The victims — Mila Yankelevich, 7, Arielle Buchman, 10, and Erin Victoria Ko, 13 — were participating in a youth sailing camp at the time of the fatal collision. Two other children and an adult counselor who were aboard survived.
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In a criminal complaint previously obtained by PEOPLE, investigators said Insua was using his cellphone at the time of the crash, with “data [indicating] activity on internet marketplaces, including at the time when the collision occurred.”
According to prosecutors, Insua was operating a tugboat pushing a barge loaded with construction debris, while a deckhouse and crane obstructed his view ahead.
The sailboat the children were aboard, meanwhile, had stalled after losing wind and was in the path of the barge — which Insua failed to see because no one aboard had been assigned as a lookout.
Reynoso previously told CBS in April that Insua intended to “accept responsibility for his conduct.”
Sentencing has been set for Oct. 13, 2026, per the outlet.
Read the original article on People
