A merchant marine captain with a history of sex assault allegations spanning decades unexpectedly pleaded guilty Wednesday — just as his Brooklyn Federal Court trial was about to begin — to getting a student cadet blackout drunk and raping her at sea.
John Merrone, 54, was minutes away from going to trial when he entered his guilty plea. He faces roughly 15 to 20 years behind bars when sentenced Dec. 22.
Merrone, of Tennesee, the captain of a commercial shipping vessel, was charged with drugging and sexually assaulting a 21-year-old student cadet studying to be a midshipmen as part of the United States Merchant Marine Academy on Long Island Sea Year program. Students work on commercial ships for school credit and first-hand experience.
The attack happened in September 2019, during an encounter in his stateroom while they were at sea in the Atlantic Ocean bound for Corpus Christi, Texas. Federal prosecutors said he lured the victim and a second woman in with an offer to drink alcohol-spiked soda — alcohol consumption is prohibited on the vessel — and drugged their drinks.
Both passed out and one of them awoke nauseous with a headache with no pants or underwear on and with discomfort indicating she’d been penetrated vaginally.
Merrone, who was 47 at the time and the highest-ranking officer on the ship, called her back into the stateroom and said he had “fun last night” and asked her to do it again and she said she didn’t remember what happened. He told her “one thing led to another,” and when she told him she hadn’t consented, he offered her money, according to filings by federal prosecutors.
She told her mother and a friend what happened when she returned to the U.S. and sought medical attention. She reported the attack to law enforcement officers in 2021.
“Jane (Doe) drank alcohol, I gave her a intoxicant and I then had sex with her without consent,” Merrone told Judge Ramon Reyes Wednesday, as he pleaded guilty to multiple federal sexual abuse charges.
Merrone, who was in a wheelchair and dressed in a suit, pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault, sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact. He faces up to life in prison on the charges.
“My clients are all very happy that this is over and that he admitted what he did,” said attorney Ryan Melogy, a maritime injury and abuse attorney who is a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and represented the Jane Doe at the center of the case as well as other women who were expected to testify about past experience Merrone is not charged with.
“All of them were ready to testify but ultimately he pled guilty and it’s over. It’s been a long journey for all of them.”
In a court filing, prosecutors referenced sexual assaults against four other women he’s not charged with, asking the judge to allow them to introduce them as evidence of a pattern of sexual assault. The judge agreed in an April order.
“The defendant today admitted abusing his authority as a ship captain to carry out a heinous sexual assault on a young woman, who was under his supervision, as she embarked on a career as a mariner,” said U.S Attorney Joseph Nocella. “It is my hope that today’s guilty plea will give the survivor of this attack some measure of closure”
In the summer of 1999, Merrone’s classmate at the Merchant Marine Academy, when they were both student cadets, went to the port in Pompeii, Italy, and after drinking, he raped her in a bar bathroom while she was incapacitated and unable to consent, according to the feds.
The woman didn’t know if he slipped something into her drink or if she reacted badly because it was her first time drinking alcohol. He apologized, begged her to forgive him, and they got into a relationship that involved other instances of violence and sexual assault, according to federal prosecutors.
In April 2011, Merrone was a merchant marine captain in the Florida Keys when he was charged with false imprisonment, sexual battery and aggravated battery.
He was accused of raping a 38-year-old waitress at a bar called the Hog Fish Bar and Grill on Stock Island, where he was a frequent customers. She believed he drugged her.
He was convicted at trial of false imprisonment and simple battery and sentenced to two years. But an appeals court overturned that conviction in July 2013 because the judge at the time didn’t allow the defense to recall a witness to the stand.
Sometime between June and September of 2021, Merrone offered another merchant mariner on his ship alcohol and soda during a visit to his stateroom to watch a movie, according to the feds.
She passed out and woke up in his bed the next morning feeling like she’d been vaginally penetrated, the feds say. He took a nude photo of her and began to act like they were dating, pressuring her for sex and she “at times acquiesced” because they were trapped on a ship together, according to the feds.
A woman he dated between 2006 and 2010 was expected to testify that, on at least two occasions, he tried to drug her by crushing a substance and putting it in her food and in her coffee.
She was expected to testify that she believed he was trying to make her more sexually pliant in light of the dynamics of their romantic relationship at that time, according to the feds.
Merrone, who remains free on bond until his sentencing, declined comment as his lawyer wheeled him out of the courtroom.
