- A youth counselor working on a Celebrity Cruises ship admitted to molesting kids on board, the FBI alleges.
- The worker allegedly abused the children in the youth center onboard Celebrity Cruises’ “Silhouette” ship.
- The cruise company told Business Insider they fired the man and are cooperating with authorities.
A youth counselor working on a Celebrity Cruises ship admitted he molested multiple children while on board, authorities allege in a court filing.
In an affidavit filed last week in Florida federal court, an FBI agent alleges that Cris John Pentinio Castor sexually abused minors while working in the youth center on Celebrity Cruises’ “Silhouette” ship.
Castor’s lawyer declined to comment on the allegations.
Castor is a Filipino citizen who had worked on the ship since August, the filing says.
The court documents say that the parents of a 6-year-old girl, who aren’t named in the filing, approached the youth center’s program manager after picking up their daughter from the center on November 27.
Their daughter then told the staff member that Castor had touched her “private parts,” pointing to her genital area, according to the affidavit.
When interviewed by a forensic expert three days later, the child said that Castor had touched her under her clothes, in the area “where the pee comes from,” while she was playing a video game, the filing says.
Security footage from the youth center shows Castor and the child sitting next to each other, and though the view is from behind, Castor can be seen reaching toward the child’s groin, the affidavit says.
The family was on a Caribbean cruise that had departed from Florida a week earlier, according to the court documents.
Castor later admitted to police that he touched the child’s vaginal area and abused at least three other minors, according to the filing.
“We have zero tolerance for this behavior,” a representative for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, which owns Celebrity Cruises, told Business Insider. “We reported this to law enforcement and terminated the crew member, and we will continue to fully cooperate with authorities.”
Castor is now facing a federal charge of abusive sexual contact of a minor under 12.
