Yacht brokerage, charter company president lied to Coast Guard after drownings

After the 2017 accident, the St. Pete man, now 74, asked a passenger to pretend to be a crew member on charter.

By Louis Llovio
| 5:00 p.m. December 13, 2022
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Tampa Bay-Lakeland

A federal jury has convicted the former president of a yacht charter firm of obstructing a U.S. Coast Guard investigation into the drowning of two people in 2017.

The Tampa jury found Patrick Dines, 74, guilty of approaching a passenger after two people on a charter had gone missing and asked one “to pretend to be a crew member in order to mislead Coast Guard investigators.”