The chief engineer of the Singaporean container ship MV Dali has hired prominent Houston criminal defense attorney David Gerger to represent him against federal charges filed Tuesday involving the ship’s March 2024 crash into the Francis Scott Key Bridge that killed six people and caused billions of dollars in damages.
The U.S. Justice Department indicted Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair, a 47-year-old Indian national, along with the two companies — Synergy Marine Group and Synergy Maritime Group — that employed him on 18 criminal counts, including conspiracy, willfully failing to immediately inform the U.S. Coast Guard of a known hazardous condition, obstruction of an agency proceeding and making false statements.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, in a written statement, said the “collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge was a preventable tragedy of enormous consequence.”
“This indictment is a critical step toward holding accountable those whose reckless disregard for maritime safety regulations caused this disaster,” Blanche said.
Lawyers following the litigation and prosecution involving the vessel crash and bridge collapse said Tuesday that Nair could not have chosen a better defense lawyer than Gerger.
The lawyers point out that Gerger and his team have achieved extraordinary successes representing so-called “scapegoats” in corporate criminal cases brought by federal government.
In 2022, Gerger and his law partner Ashlee Martin, a former federal prosecutor, won the complete acquittal of Boeing chief technical pilot Mark Forkner, who was charged in the 737 MAX case. In 2016, Gerger won the complete acquittal of the BP rig engineer Robert Kaluzza, who was charged with manslaughter by the federal government in the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill.
“Once again, the government is trying to turn an accident into a crime,” Gerger told The Texas Lawbook. “Karthik thinks about this tragic accident every day, but he certainly did not cause it.”