Nudist cruise worker raped, beat passenger

A cruise ship passenger was raped and beaten by a worker. Photo / Thinkstock

A cruise ship worker has admitted in a US court he beat, raped and tried to throw a passenger overboard from a nudist cruise because he believed she insulted his mother.

Ketut Pujayasa, 29, changed his plea to guilty on charges of attempted murder and aggravated sexual assault in a Miami federal courtroom on Monday. No plea bargain was offered.

An Indonesian citizen who worked as a room-service attendant for Holland America Line, Pujayasa faces a maximum of life in prison when sentenced on December 8.

Pujayasa's court-appointed lawyers, Chantel Doakes and Joaquin Padilla, declined to comment on why their client opted to plea rather than face trial.

They also did not disclose what length of sentence they would recommend to the judge.
The victim, identified in court documents only by her initials, plans to attend the sentencing hearing.

The woman, 31, was attacked while she slept aboard the MS Nieuw Amsterdam off the coast of Honduras on Valentine's Day.

The nudist cruise had left Port Everglades five days earlier.

The woman told authorities she lost consciousness at least once during the assault.

She was so severely injured that she was flown by air ambulance to a South Florida hospital.

Pujayasa confessed to attacking the woman, saying he believed she insulted his mother when she called him a "son of a bitch" after he knocked on her door to deliver breakfast.

He said he knocked three times and heard her say: "Wait a minute, son of a bitch!" He took offence, he said, and fumed all day long.

He later returned and let himself into the woman's room using his company-issued master key and waited for her.

Pujayasa said he approached the woman while she slept, grabbed her by the neck and punched her twice in the face, federal prosecutor Francis Viamontes said.

He struck her with a laptop and a curling iron, tried to silence her screams by strangling her with telephone and curling iron cords and stripped off her shorts, Viamontes said.

"He then removed his pants in an attempt to have forcible sex with (the victim) to punish her for the disrespectful comment made earlier," Viamontes said.

Pujayasa said little at Monday's hearing.

"If this case were to go to trial, do you believe they could prove what they just said?" US District Judge Jose Martinez asked. "Yes," Pujayasa said.

Martinez followed up: "Is it true?" "Yes," Pujayasa again said.

Pujayasa was arrested when the ship returned to Fort Lauderdale.

- AAP