SoFla Guide Editors
A federal judge has sentenced Miami tugboat captain Yusiel Lopez Insua to 18 months in prison for the July 2025 Biscayne Bay collision that killed three young girls at a summer sailing camp. U.S. District Court Judge Jacqueline Becerra handed down the sentence on October 13, 2026, WPLG Local 10 reported, and it was six months longer than what prosecutors had recommended. The charge, seaman’s manslaughter, carries a maximum of 10 years in federal prison, according to CBS Miami.
The sentence
Lopez Insua, 46, pleaded guilty to seaman’s manslaughter in July 2026, changing his plea from not guilty before Judge Becerra in the Southern District of Florida. Federal prosecutors had charged him on March 31, 2026, alleging he operated the barge with obstructed visibility, without a lookout, and while using his cellphone.
Prosecutors recommended 12 months and one day in prison followed by six months of house arrest, WPLG Local 10 reported. Prosecutors, the defense and the victims’ families had agreed on that recommendation as part of the plea. Judge Becerra went above it, sentencing Lopez Insua to 18 months in federal prison.
“Three children lost their lives in a tragedy that never should have happened,” U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones of the Southern District of Florida said in a statement, as reported by WLRN.
What happened on the bay
On the morning of July 28, 2025, Lopez Insua was captaining a 25-foot tugboat named “Wood Chuck” that was pushing a 108-foot, 149-gross-ton construction barge across Biscayne Bay, according to WPLG Local 10. At approximately 11:15 a.m., near Hibiscus Island, the barge struck a sailboat and pushed it underwater, the Miami Herald reported via Yahoo News.
The sailboat, a 17-foot Hobie Getaway, was carrying five girl campers between the ages of 7 and 13 and a 19-year-old counselor. The children were taking part in a summer sailing camp run by the Miami Youth Sailing Foundation and the Miami Yacht Club, according to CBS Miami.
Two of the girls, 7-year-old Mila Yankelevich and 13-year-old Erin Ko Han, were pronounced dead at Jackson Memorial Hospital that day. A third, 10-year-old Arielle “Ari” Mazi Buchman, died at Jackson Memorial on August 3, 2025, after days in critical condition.
WLRN reported that the tugboat’s forward view was obstructed by a deckhouse and a crane, and that no crewmember had been assigned as a lookout. The Coast Guard tested the captain for impairment immediately after the crash and found none, according to the Miami Herald via Yahoo News.
What was said in court
Defense attorney Walter A. Reynoso, who represented Lopez Insua, said his client took ownership of what happened.
“My client accepted responsibility before Judge Becerra for his criminal negligence in the tragic boating accident,” Reynoso said, according to CBS Miami.
“My client is deeply remorseful for his conduct. He feels awful. He feels awful about the unimaginable pain and loss suffered by the three families who lost three very young daughters,” Reynoso told CBS Miami.
Reynoso also addressed the decision to plead guilty rather than go to trial. “My client will not put the families through a trial and expose them to relive this terrible tragedy,” he said, as reported by WPLG Local 10.
What it means for South Florida
The crash shook families across Miami-Dade, especially those whose kids spend summers on the water. A sailing camp outing between Hibiscus and Monument Islands, near Miami Beach, is the kind of ordinary summer day that many local parents recognize. That is part of why the case drew so much attention from the start.
The sentence is also notable for what the judge chose to do with it. Prosecutors, the defense and the families had all signed on to a recommendation of roughly a year and a day behind bars plus six months of home confinement. Judge Becerra added six months of prison time to that, WPLG Local 10 reported, though she stopped well short of the 10-year maximum that CBS Miami noted the charge allows. Whether 18 months answers the loss of three children is a question the families and the community will keep asking. The court record, for its part, is now set on the criminal side.
What’s next
The criminal case is resolved with the sentencing, but the matter is not entirely closed. WPLG Local 10 reported that the crash is also the subject of at least one civil lawsuit in Miami-Dade County court. That case will proceed separately from the federal criminal sentence.
Lopez Insua will serve his 18 months in federal prison. SoFla Guide will follow the civil proceedings as they move through the Miami-Dade courts.
