Drunk Florida captain holds passengers hostage, police say

SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) – A group of passengers experienced a scary nightmare while on a 12-hour charter boat fishing trip of the coast of Florida over the weekend.

Sarasota police say on Sunday, June 2, five passengers joined Captain Mark Bailey and his first mate, Devin Kisell on the charter boat “Double Marker.”

The group departed Sarasota at 6 a.m. for a 12-hour fishing trip.

According to statements given to police, Captain Bailey was drinking and was heavily intoxicated while driving the boat.

When they were about 60 miles out in the gulf, one of the passengers, Carlo Lopeparo asked 15-year-old Jason Rialmo to go to the second deck and grab a beer from a plastic bucket that was next to Bailey.

The captain told Rialmo to put the beer back. The teen thought the captain was kidding and kept going. Bailey then grabbed him and ripped off a chain that was around the teen’s neck.

The report states the group tried to continue on with their trip but the mood was sour and Captain Bailey continued to drink and do cocaine.

The Captain then called up 25-year-old passenger Chris Giuffre to come to speak with him and the captain reportedly said: “I have a gun and if I want to, I will put a bullet in each of your heads and leave you out here.”

“At that point, we were all kind of waiting for something horrible to happen for him to come down those stairs with his gun,” said Chris’ father, Christopher Giuffre.