Captain found guilty of speedboat crash that killed US executive Adrienne Vaughan in Italy, lawyer says

The captain of a motorboat that crashed into a sailboat off Italy’s Amalfi coast, killing an American tourist, has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for involuntary manslaughter, his lawyer said Friday.

Adriana Vaughan45, director of the American subsidiary of the Bloomsbury publishing house, died in August 2023 after being thrown from a speedboat in this tourist spot in southern Italy.

Italian captain Elio Persico, 32, was sentenced by a Salerno judge to four years and nine months in prison after requesting a plea deal, lawyer Liberato Mazzola told News.

Persico had tested positive for cocaine and alcohol at the time.

Vaughan was on the boat with her husband and two children, ages 12 and 8, and was sunbathing when the boat crashed into a sailboat carrying partygoers.

She was thrown overboard and hit by the propellers. His daughter was also thrown into the sea but was unharmed.

A video published by the New York Post showed guests on the sailboat during the collision, with a woman asking, “What happened?”

“This ship collided with us,” one man responds frantically, before running across the deck.

Moments later, another guest says, “He needs help.”

“The sailboat was going straight ahead and so was the [motor]ship,” Pietro Iuzzolino, a bartender who was mixing cocktails aboard the sailboat, told the Italian newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno. “Then, suddenly [the motorboat] I turned 180 degrees: there was a collision and I heard a very loud bang.

“I saw the woman in the water being held by her children and her husband,” he said. “It was terrible.”

Vaughan was pulled from the water and taken to a dock, but died when an ambulance helicopter arrived, state television said at the time.

When the boat crashed it was heading to Positano, one of the most popular destinations on the Amalfi Coast, according to Italian media.

Vaughan was president of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., publisher of the Harry Potter series.

“Adrienne Vaughan was a leader of dazzling talent and infectious passion and had a deep commitment to authors and readers,” board chair Julia Reidhead and president and CEO Maria A. Pallante said in a joint statement after the incident. “Above all, she was an extraordinary human being, and those of us who had the opportunity to work with her will be forever fortunate.”