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William “Bill” Woodhour
President & CEO, Maersk Line, Limited
William E. Woodhour has protected and defended numerous Maersk ship’s officers who were accused of sexually harassing and sexually assaulting mariners aboard Maersk Line, Limited vessels and Woodhour has worked tirelessly to shield those predators from justice.
Woodhour, through his lawyers, has also systematically attacked the victims of those predators and waged scorched-earth campaigns to discredit victims of harassment and abuse aboard his vessels, including by filing lawsuits against the victims.
Since becoming President and CEO of Maersk Line, Limited (the American-flag arm of Maersk Line) in July 2016, Woodhour has attempted to protect and defend infamous shipboard sexual predator Captain Mark Stinziano. Woodhour even attempted to intervene in the U.S. Coast Guard’s prosecution of Stinziano for sexual harassment and shipboard sex crimes aboard the Maersk Idaho by sending a letter to Admiral Karl Schultz, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.
As of May 22, 2022, Woodhour is still defending Stinziano and still employing Captain Stinziano, despite the fact that a federal judge suspended Stinziano’s merchant mariner’s license after he was found to have committed at least three acts of “assault and battery” against a USMMA deck cadet, to have “hazed” a USMMA deck cadet, to have stuck a ball point pen into his own asshole and made the cadet smell it, to have made the 2nd Mate unknowingly use the pen Stinziano stuck into his own asshole, to have lured cadets into his stateroom under the pretense of watching a movie, only to then show them a movie wherein a man cut a fetus out of a pregnant woman’s belly before subsequently raping the newborn baby to death, to have forced cadets to watch hardcore pornography, and to have repeatedly groped and sexually assaulted crew members.
As of May 22, 2022 Woodhour is STILL EMPLOYING CAPTAIN STINZIANO and has taken no public adverse action against him.
Since at least 2016, Woodhour has known that sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and violent rapes against cadets from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy were rampant problems aboard his Maersk vessels. On November 14, 2016 (via Edward Hanley, Woodhour’s V.P. of Labor Relations) Woodhour sent a letter to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in which Maersk and Woodhour acknowledged that they were not receiving reports of sexual abuse because officers aboard their ships may be silencing victims and covering up sex crimes, and because “the reasons for cadets not reporting SASH are complex, and may include fear of retribution, intimidation, or peer ostracism.”
In his 2016 letter to the USMMA, Woodhour also acknowledged that anonymous surveys taken by students at the USMMA showed that rates of sexual abuse aboard Maersk vessels were dramatically higher than rates of reports of sexual abuse received by Maersk. And yet Woodhour did nothing to stop the rapes. Instead, he fought behind the scenes, using his considerable power, to gut and dilute any meaningful safety reforms that would have protected cadets and other mariners from sexual predators within Woodhour’s ranks.
Woodhour has protected sexual predators, enabled and even facilitated sexual abuse, and has prevented even a single victim of shipboard sexual harassment or assault from filing a lawsuit against Maersk during his entire tenure at the company. All the while, Woodhour has made billions of dollars in profits for Maersk while young mariners have suffered rampant abuse at the hands of Maersk employees.
Links to MLAA stories and documents about William Woodhour: