Costa Concordia captain sentenced to 16 years in prison

Michael Winter | USA TODAY

The captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship was convicted Wednesday and sentenced to 16 years in prison for the 2012 wreck of the Italian liner that killed 32 passengers and crewmembers.

Francesco Schettino, 54, was found guilty of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship off the western coast of Italy before many of the 4,200 passengers and crew had escaped.

The sentence was significantly less than the 26 years and 3 months requested by prosecutors, who called Schettino a "reckless idiot."

Schettino told the three-judge panel before deliberations began that his "head was sacrificed to serve economic interests" of his employer. He then began crying.

The Concordia's captain said he was "a few hours from a verdict that should have involved an entire organization and instead sees me as the only defendant."

He wasn't present when Judge Giovanni Puliatti read the verdict in a theater in Grosseto after the three-judge panel spent about eight hours deliberating.

The court rejected prosecutors' request that Schettino be immediately arrested. In Italy, defendants have two levels of appeals and don't have to begin serving their sentences until those appeals are exhausted.

The wreck happened about 9:45 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2012, as passengers were dining. Schettino testified that he steered the 952-foot, 13-deck ship close to the eastern shore of the island of Giglio, off Tuscany, to "impress the passengers." Instead, he struck a reef, tearing a 160-foot gash in the port hull.

The engine room quickly flooded, knocking out propulsion and electricity, which caused the ship to drift. But Schettino delayed an evacuation, which, when it finally came, was chaotic, passengers and crew testified.

The Concordia came to rest up on its starboard side outside Giglio's port. Autopsies showed most victims drowned aboard the ship or in the Tyrrhenian Sea after either falling or jumping off. The last body was not recovered until last year.

Testimony during the 19-month trial, which began in July 2013, highlighted errors by crewmembers and equipment that failed.

In a last appeal to the court, defense lawyer Domenico Pepe said the shipwreck was an "accident … and successive events led to the deaths of these poor people." He expressed the hope that "this trial will serve for something, at least to save lives" on future cruises because of lessons learned.

Schettino and Costa Cruises, the Italian unit of Carnival Corp., were also ordered to pay about $34,000 to each passenger, along with millions of dollars for environmental damage. The cruise company has already paid a $1.1 million fine for the disaster.

Lawyers for many survivors and victims' families have filed civil suits against Costa Cruises.

While insisting Schettino deserves conviction and a stiff prison sentence, the plaintiffs' lawyers had lamented to the court that no one from the cruise company's upper echelons was put on trial.

Four Concordia crewmembers and Costa's land-based crisis coordinator were allowed to plea bargain. None is serving prison time.

The wreck was left abandoned for 2½ years before it was refloated and towed to Genoa last July to be scrapped. It was the most expensive maritime recovery ever.

Contributing: the Associated Press