Suspect convicted in teen date’s drowning sees jail time slashed to 10 weeks on appeal

The Court of Appeal in The Hague dramatically reduced the prison sentence handed to 33-year-old Roy B. for his role in the drowning death of Orlando Boldewijn. The District Court convicted B. of assault where the act resulted in the victim’s death, but that charge was reduced on appeal. Where the lower court sentenced B. to 44 months in prison when the case was tried in 2020, that term was cut down to just ten weeks on Tuesday.

B. arranged to pay Boldewijn for sex during a date at his enclosed pontoon boat in the Ypenburg neighborhood in The Hague. B. picked the boy up with a smaller boat on February 18, 2018, and they sailed to the floating cabin on De Blauwe Loper where B. was living at the time. Just after midnight, B. brought Boldewijn back to shore and returned to his cabin.

However, Boldewijn left his public transport card at B.’s home. Police were able to track down video footage from 12:56 a.m. showing Boldewijn returning back to the location where he had been dropped off, with prosecutors reasoning that he wanted to recover the public transport pass. A review of data from his phone suggests he entered the water, which was just above freezing, a few minutes later.

B. later told his close friends and his father that he heard someone scream out about 15 meters from his pontoon. From out the window, he said he saw hands just above the surface, and believed the person may have attempted to swim despite the temperature. By the time he got dressed and sailed to the area, the hands had disappeared under the surface.

He did not contact authorities, even after the boy’s disappearance was reported by authorities. B. also told his friends that he destroyed the boy’s public transport card afterwards, and threw out the pieces. After police and Boldewijn’s family spent more than a week trying to find him, an anonymous tip led divers to his body. Police later determined the tip came from one of B.’s close friends.

The question that was central to the appeal was the reason the suspect did not immediately contact authorities when seeing someone in the water, and the law violated by the lack of action. Expert testimony and research presented suggested that the extremely cold water could have increased the boy’s chance of survival, if he had been found fast enough for medical personnel to keep him alive.

The lower court ruled that B. was reasonably suspected of assaulting Boldewijn by failing to provide assistance and by failing to contact authorities. The lower court said it was plausible that Boldewijn could have been quickly pulled from the water, giving paramedics a chance to try and revive him less than 20 minutes after a call to emergency services. As such, he was guilty of assault resulting in someone’s death.

But the Court of Appeal disagreed, saying that it was “unrealistic to assume that” resuscitation efforts would have started even 15 minutes after a call to emergency services. It took a look at more research and expert testimony, and came to the conclusion that Boldewijn “would have had a small chance of surviving the drowning.”

Even though that chance was reduced to zero by not calling emergency services, the facts of the case were “insufficient to reasonably attribute” the boy’s death to the suspect’s inaction. “In addition, it is important that due to the cold ice temperature of the water, the suspect could not be expected to jump into the water and save the boy.” The man exercised his right to remain silent during the appeal.

The court acquitted B. of the assault charge, but convicted him of failing to provide assistance to someone knowingly in a life-threatening situation where the victim wound up dead. The lesser charge carries a maximum sentence of three months, but the court instead ordered him to serve a ten-week term, noting that it took nearly four years for the appeal to be concluded and the suspect relocated after receiving threats.

“The suspect should have called 112 instantly when he saw the victim close to drowning. For unexplained reasons, he chose not to do so,” the court said. Prosecutors in the appeal wanted the court to again find B. guilty of assault with a fatal outcome. They had recommended a 42-month sentence, similar to what the District Court had ordered.

Boldewijn’s mother later said that the punishment was an injustice considering her son died from the incident. The case can still be appealed further to the Supreme Court.