MIAMI (WSVN) - An attorney from Miami Lakes accused of knocking out a 67-year-old cruise passenger during a hallway fight is now sharing his side of what happened, claiming he was forced to fight.
7News cameras rolled Tuesday as Phillip Andrew Ortiz reenacted how he said he confronted the elderly man, as he grabbed reporter Sheldon Fox by his blazer and pushed him against a window.
“I grabbed his arm, I engaged him like this. I disengage him by pushing him back,” said Ortiz.
The demonstration aimed to recreate what happened aboard the Norwegian Encore, took place after Ortiz spent two days behind bars.
“You were arrested for aggravated battery on a person 65 or older,” said Miami-Dade Judge Mindy S. Glazer during Ortiz’s bond hearing.
Authorities said the suspect, 38, attacked the man aboard the cruise before the ship was set to leave PortMiami for a Caribbean cruise.
“That’s incorrect. I never attacked the victim to begin with,” said Ortiz.
According to the arrest report, “The defendant [Ortiz] tripped the victim, who landed on his head along with the defendant’s full body weight, causing him to lose consciousness.”
But Ortiz refutes deputies’ assessment, saying he and his family were the ones attacked during a dispute over access to a hallway on the ship.
“He was barricading the door,” he said.
Ortiz told 7News he was just trying to get his family to their rooms, when their access was cut off by who he described as a “drunken passenger,” telling them they weren’t allowed through.
“‘[Expletive] you, you little [expletive].’ And then he approached me in a very combative way,” said Ortiz.
His partner attempted to intervene, getting in between the men when, the couple said, that older passenger got physical.
“It enraged me because he did attack my significant other,” Ortiz said.
Photos provided by Ortiz showed bruises the pair suffered in the encounter.
When asked if he had been drinking prior to the incident, Ortiz said he hadn’t gotten a chance to finish his first beer onboard when it happened.
He insists he had to take action, demonstrating how he pushed the older man back.
It appeared to be over, until, he said, the man blocked a doorway between the couple and their two kids, aged 6 and 14.
“Could you not have said to him, ‘Hey, man, clearly we got off on the wrong foot here. I don’t wanna put my hands on you again. You are in my way and in their way, can you please step aside?'” Fox asked Ortiz.
“I was in full panic mode,” he said.
That was when Ortiz took the man down.
“I used the tactic of dropping him like that, and he fell to the floor. At that point, I disengaged once again,” he said.
Stephan Lopez, Ortiz’s attorney, said his client is innocent.
“A threat is a threat,” Lopez said. “My client didn’t punch, kick, bite or do anything other than take this person to the ground.”
Ortiz also said he doesn’t believe he went too far since he believed his family was in danger.
“The rules of engagement are completely off when it comes to family and especially children,” he said.
Ortiz and his attorney have pending requests for the surveillance footage of the incident from the cruise line.
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