Northeast Ohio Mother Seeks Justice for Teenage Daughter's Death

CLEVELAND, OH, July 14, 2012

Nineteen-year-old Midview High School graduate Emma Nahas died July 8, 2010. She drowned in Lake Erie, helpless as the yacht she was swimming off drifted away from her faster than she could swim. A friend invited Nahas on the boating trip, but it was coordinated by 31-year-old John Slyman and 36-year-old Alex Cucu, neither of whom Nahas knew. The older men supplied copious amounts of alcohol and a luxury yacht to entice six young women - five of whom were underage - to join them for a day of frivolity on Lake Erie.

After spending the day boating, tubing, jet skiing, dancing, and drinking, Slyman and Nahas went for one last swim to cool off before heading back to the dock. Unbeknownst to Nahas, who had no boating experience, the yacht was not properly anchored with its engines turned off and quickly drifted away from her and Slyman as they swam. Some of those aboard the yacht brought Slyman safely back alongside the vessel by swimming to him and providing him a life jacket, which kept him afloat until the Coast Guard arrived.

No one swam to Nahas nor threw her a flotation device. Cucu, the captain of the yacht, either because he was intoxicated or because he simply did not care, made no effort to look for her. By the time the Coast Guard arrived, it was too late. Emma Nahas had been left to drown. Her body washed up in Euclid 11 days later.

The Coast Guard was forced to drive the yacht back to shore because everyone on board was too inebriated to do so. Slyman was notably intoxicated when the Coast Guard pulled him from the lake and, once back onboard, he promptly vomited and passed out. The U.S. Coast Guard charged Cucu with operating the boat under the influence. He was later found guilty.

Nahas's mother, Tracy Holmes Super, has filed a wrongful death suit against Cucu and Slyman for failing to have appropriate safety equipment on board, failing to properly secure the boat and prevent it from drifting while passengers were in the water, failing to keep proper lookout while passengers were in the water and generally neglecting the safety of the passengers.

"Emma was a young, talented woman who had her whole life ahead of her," said Stuart Scott, whose firm, Spangenberg Shibley & Liber, is acting as co-counsel on the case. "Her unnecessary and preventable death was caused by the carelessness and recklessness of these two men who were only interested in drinking and partying with young women on their yacht but not their safety or the safety of other boaters on the water."

Spangenberg Shibley & Liber handles a broad range of personal injury, dangerous products, medical malpractice, workplace injury, nursing home and elder abuse and civil rights cases. It also litigates a variety of property damage and insurance coverage cases. For more information, contact marketing manager Miranda Miller at 888-633-0360.

Website: http://www.spanglaw.com/