Man who fell off cruise nabbed on sex charges

The man notorious for falling off a cruise ship in March is in some serious hot water.

Michael Mankamyer of Orlando, Fla., who survived a 60-foot fall from the cruise ship Carnival Glory off Florida’s coast on March 16, was arrested on two sex charges, The Orlando Sentinel's Web site reported Tuesday.

The 35-year-old man went overboard while on a week-long cruise with a teen-age boy, who is not an alleged victim, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

Mankamyer had cited a combination of alcohol and prescription drugs as the cause for the fall.

Led in handcuffs to the Orange County Jail, Mankamyer, an MRI technician, said he was innocent and didn't know why he was in custody, the Sentinel reported.

"You'll have to ask them," Mankamyer told reporters. "I haven't been charged with anything."

Mankamyer reportedly declined to speak with investigators, saying he had retained a lawyer.

His arrest on charges of rape and lewd and lascivious molestation grew out of an investigation by the FBI of the March incident, the Web site reported.

FBI-reviewed cruise-ship records indicate Mankamyer escorted at least four teen boys on separate cruises, the Sentinel reported. The boys were children of parents Mankamyer had befriended, according to Sgt. Rich Mankewich of the Orange County Sherriff's Office Sex Crimes Unit. "He digs himself right into their families."

"Once they learned he lived in Orange County, they turned it over to us," Mankewich told the Sentinel. "The parents found out about it today. To prevent violence, we removed him from the neighborhood."

Mankamyer is being held in Orange County Jail.

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