Key Bridge case: Dali manager, employee charged in conspiracy indictment

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A federal grand jury charged a cargo ship’s manager and an employee with conspiracy and other offenses following a yearslong criminal investigation into the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse.  

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Handed up April 8 but unsealed Tuesday morning, the indictment charges Synergy Marine Group and one of its employees with conspiring to defraud and commit offenses against the U.S.

The sprawling, 18-count bill alleges that the maritime firm and a shoreside technical superintendent concealed potential onboard hazards in official documents and presented misleading compliance paperwork to Coast Guard officials. 

The indictment also alleges that the defendants lied to National Transportation Safety Board investigators following the March 26, 2024, collapse in Baltimore and provided false inspection certificates to a federal grand jury investigating it.

Against the backdrop of the Patapsco River in Baltimore and the remaining pieces of the bridge, Maryland U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes said at a Tuesday news conference that the falsehoods covered up issues that prevented the 984-foot-long cargo ship from regaining power and steering in the lead-up to its allision with the Key Bridge.

Singapore-based Synergy said in a Tuesday statement that it was “surprised and disappointed” by the charges. The firm said the Justice Department “is criminalising a tragic accident” and called the allegations in the indictment “baseless,” saying that they “have nothing to do” with the allision with the bridge.

“Synergy will vigorously defend itself against these inaccurate allegations,” the firm said, adding that the company and its employees “have fully cooperated and have been transparent at all times during the NTSB‘s investigation, and any allegations to the contrary are woefully inaccurate.”

The charges against Synergy and Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair, the Dali’s technical superintendent at the time, come more than two years after the cargo ship struck a bridge support column, killing six in the ensuing collapse and shutting down maritime trade at the Port of Baltimore for more than two months. 

But the 47-page indictment was unsealed only a few weeks ahead of a planned trial to determine the shipowners’ liability for the catastrophe — the first civil trial over damages in what could easily become the largest maritime financial loss in history.

Nair is believed to be in India, according to Hayes. Neither he nor Synergy had an attorney listed in records for the criminal case. Hayes said that federal authorities would “enforce all of and use all of our available law enforcement tools” to take Nair into custody.

The indictment accuses Synergy of using fuel-flushing pumps, rather than an approved fuel supply, to feed generators aboard the Dali and two other vessels without notifying Coast Guard officials of the modification. 

Hayes said the ship lost power for a second time moments before the allision because the ship was relying on the flushing pumps to fuel two diesel generators. The transportation safety board said in its report on the collapse that those pumps have no backup system in case of a failure, prompting the second blackout.

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The Justice Department settled its civil claim against the shipowners in 2024 for over $100 million. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown‘s office announced a settlement in principle with Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and Synergy Marine Corp. last month.

In the criminal probe, federal authorities executed more than two dozen federal search warrants and conducted close to 200 interviews over the past two years, FBI Baltimore Special Agent in Charge Jimmy Paul said Tuesday.

The FBI made headlines about three weeks after the collapse, when agents boarded the Dali to conduct “court authorized law enforcement activity.” Months later, federal agents boarded another ship managed by Synergy at the Port of Baltimore.

Until Tuesday, there had been few updates on the criminal probe. Civil attorneys preparing for next month’s liability trial had indicated that some potential witnesses feared criminal consequences — several Dali crewmembers invoked the Fifth Amendment for the better part of their hourslong depositions, while other deponents feared they would be hit with subpoenas and detention if they even traveled to the U.S. Several members of the Dali’s crew have had to stay in the U.S. since the bridge collapse as part of a security agreement with federal authorities.

It remained unclear why the indictment remained sealed for over a month after being signed and filed in early April, despite Nair not being taken into custody. Asked about the gap, Hayes declined to answer but said that “at the appropriate time and when appropriate, we can certainly reveal that information.”

The indictment also charges both Synergy and Nair with misconduct or neglect of ship officer, a pre-Civil War statute colloquially known as seaman’s manslaughter that covers deaths caused by the “misconduct, negligence, or inattention” of ship employees and pilots. It also applies to the executives of companies that own and charter vessels if their “fraud, neglect, connivance, misconduct, or violation of law” leads to death. It carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The law was enacted in 1838 to hold steamboat captains and crew responsible for maritime disasters but continues to be applied in federal court — a scuba dive boat captain was sentenced in 2024 to four years in prison after being convicted of it in connection with a vessel fire that killed 34 people off the California coast.

This story has been updated.