Cruise line worker arrested in sexual assault identified
[UPDATED]

8:48 AM | March 10, 2009

A Princess Cruise Line staff member arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of sexually assaulting a female passenger was identified today by federal authorities as Jorge Manuel Teixeira, 38, a Portuguese national.

Teixeira was taken into custody after investigators and an evidence response team received a complaint about the assault and boarded the Coral Princess, which docked Monday morning in Los Angeles, authorities said. The ship was on 14-day cruise through the Panama Canal, between Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Los Angeles, said Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Laura Eimiller.

Julie Benson, a spokesperson for the cruise line, released the following statement Monday: "Two days prior to the conclusion of the Coral Princess cruise, which concluded today in Los Angeles, there was an allegation of sexual assault made by a passenger against a member of the ship's crew. As soon as this allegation was brought to shipboard management's attention, the FBI was contacted, as is our standard practice. Following the allegation, we also put into place our crime response protocol, including sealing off the area of the alleged assault, restricting the crew member to his quarters with a security posting and providing medical and other assistance to the passenger."

Corrected 10:05 a.m.: Some words were missing from Benson's statement in a previous posting; they have since been added.

-- Ari B. Bloomekatz and Andrew Blankstein

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2 ... e-arr.html