Oct 7, 2008 9:40 pm US/Pacific
Trial On Cosco Busan Oil Spill Set for April
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) ―
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The Cosco Busan following the collision with the Bay Bridge last year.
CBS
The trial of a pilot and a ship management company on criminal charges stemming from a massive oil spill last year was postponed in federal court in San Francisco Tuesday until next April.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston set an April 6 trial date after a lawyer for Hong Kong-based Fleet Management Ltd. said preparing for the trial will be "a painfully time-consuming process."
Attorney Marc Greenberg said pre-trial tasks include going over a lengthy Coast Guard report on the Nov. 7, 2007, spill from the Cosco Busan into San Francisco Bay and analyzing the Chinese-language depositions of six crew members.
The depositions, or sworn statements, of the Chinese captain and crew members are now scheduled to take place between mid-October and mid-December.
Fleet Management and pilot John Cota, 60, of Petaluma, are both accused of polluting the bay and killing migratory birds. The company also faces six counts of false statements and obstruction of justice for allegedly falsifying transit documents after the accident.
Cota was the pilot and Fleet Management was the operator of the container ship when it hit a protective fender of the Bay Bridge and spilled nearly 54,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel into the bay.
The spill killed birds, fouled beaches and disrupted the fishing industry. Fleet Management has said in court papers that it, the ship's owner and their insurers have thus far paid $69 million in clean-up costs and compensation.
The trial was originally scheduled for Nov. 17, but Illston at a hearing last month agreed to Cota's request to delay it in order to avoid the first anniversary of the spill.
Also last month, the judge turned down Fleet Management's request to plead no contest to the charges it faces.
In a written ruling Tuesday explaining her reasoning, the judge said allowing a no-contest plea "would prevent the issue of Fleet's role from being resolved by a jury in this proceeding."
Illston wrote, "In a case such as this, the public has a substantial interest in a final determination of fault."
In a no-contest plea, a defendant does not admit guilt, but accepts liability for the criminal sentence or fines that would result from a conviction. The no-contest plea cannot be used as evidence in a civil lawsuit, however.
Fleet Management is named as a defendant along with Cota and the ship's owner, Regal Stone Ltd. of Hong Kong, in several civil lawsuits pending before a different federal judge.
Illston also last month turned down requests by Cota to have a separate trial and to have his trial moved to Fresno because of extensive publicity in the Bay Area. But she said in a written ruling Tuesday that she might reconsider those decisions if additional evidence of possible jury prejudice comes to light.
Cota is additionally charged with two counts of making false statements on pilot medical forms in 2006 and 2007, but Illston earlier this year agreed to allow him a separate, later trial on those counts.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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