Disney authorities allegedly did not allow security to report the incident.
Taplin interviewed the young victim after she and her grandmother reported the crime to Guest Services. The security officer, who had 17-years of experience as a police officer, found the surveillance footage extremely troubling.
The molestation occurred while the cruise ship was still docked at Port Canaveral in Florida while passengers were still boarding. Taplin recalls that they “weren’t going anywhere for another two hours or so.” Since they were still on U.S. land, Taplin notified the ship’s second-in-command and offered to call her FBI contact. However, she did not get the response she anticipated.
“I was ordered not to make any phone calls, do anything at all. Nothing. Period” recalled Taplin. She said that she was told, “Just keep your mouth shut.”
“If a crime is committed while you’re hooked up anywhere here, it is an American, it is a United States, it is a Florida crime,” said Taplin.
The ship then departed that afternoon with the suspected perpetrator, Milton Braganza, still on board, leaving other children at risk of falling victim to the same employee. Disney had put its reputation ahead of the children’s safety.
After the cruise ship had left U.S. waters the following day, the Disney Cruise Line finally notified the Port Canaveral police and the U.S. Coast Guard. However, the case was passed on to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
“In my professional and personal opinion, I think they wanted to get outside the United States limits and get him off the ship in the Bahamas and just leave it alone,” Taplin said.
Once the ship arrived in Nassau, Braganza admitted to the act he was accused of, but the victim’s grandmother chose not to prosecute. It is unclear why the family chose to step away from this case.
Later, Braganza was flown back to his home country of India at the expense of Disney. The company both arranged and paid for his flight.
The former Security Officer believes that “Disney wouldn’t have gotten away with it if they were Americans.”
One week after this incident, Taplin resigned from the Disney Cruise Line after working with them for nine months.
Disney has shown us that it will put its reputation above all else, a trait most recently exhibited by CEO Bob Chapek. Chapek recently gave in to Left-wing pressure and condemned Florida’s anti-grooming bill, which is meant to protect young children from ‘woke’ adults who want to teach kindergarteners about sexual orientation and convince them that they “might be a different gender than they think.”
What the public is seeing more and more is that Disney will set aside moral judgment and prioritize its public image above all else.
