As his wife was charged with careless operation of a vessel for her involvement in a fatal boat crash last month, Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary was enjoying dinner with friends at Scarpetta in Manhattan, according to fellow diners who spotted Mr. Wonderful. The so-called “spy” told Page Six on Thursday that O’Leary seemed carefree during the outing
“It looked like he was with a group of friends enjoying a nice dinner,” they said. “Certainly, he wasn’t staying home.”
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On Tuesday it was reported that the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officially charged O’Leary’s wife, Linda, with careless operation of a vessel in connection to the Aug. 24 fatal collision, in which 64-year-old Gary Poltash and 48-year-old Susanne Brito were killed.
The driver of the second vessel involved, 57-year-old Richard Ruh, was also charged, with Ontario police filing a charge of failure to exhibit a navigation light against him.
The charges came just a month after both parties were involved in the tragic accident on Ontario’s Lake Joseph, where the O’Leary’s have a lakehouse. According to reports, Linda, with her husband as a passenger, had been driving their boat at 17 mph at around 11:30 p.m. when it collided with a larger 13-person vessel. That vessel did not have its navigation lights on, authorities discerned from videos.
Linda now faces a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison or a $1 million fine, though her attorney, Brian Greenspan, who notably represented celebrities like Justin Bieber and Naomi Campbell in the past, intends to fight those charges.
“She has always been a cautious and experienced boater who came into collision with an unlit craft on a dark and moonless night. The other boat was sitting in a dark spot on a lake, no cottage lights nearby, no moon,” Greenspan told the Los Angeles Times, adding that the penalty O’Leary faces only applies to “ocean going vessels.”
“They are absolutely wrong. That applies to ocean going vessels. The pleasure craft provision is a maximum $10,000 fine,” he said.
Neither O’Leary nor his wife have publicly commented on the case since an initial statement confirming their involvement.
In the wake of the collision, the son of Poltash, Alex Poltash, created an education fund for the three children of Brito – 12-year-old Liam, 11-year-old Ruby, and 9-year-old Cash. On the page, he wrote that it was a way to “honor and respect the values that were near and dear to our father’s heart” and a way for “the legacy of our father live on.”
The donation has since been closed, raising $25,001 of its initial $15,000 goal.
