In United States v. Verhonich, --- F.4th ---, No. 25-1407 (9th Cir. 2026), the Court affirmed the district court’s order upholding Verhonich’s misdemeanor conviction and sentence for violating National Park Service Boating and Water Use Activities regulations in connection with a jet ski accident where Verhonich was the driver and a passenger drowned.
Verhonich contends that evidence related to his failure to wear a life jacket or attach the engine cut-off lanyard to his wrist or body is irrelevant to his guilt or innocence on Count One because the plain meaning of “[o]perating a vessel,” as used in 36 C.F.R. § 3.8(b)(8), “concerns only Mr. Verhonich’s piloting of the jet ski, not external factors like safety gear.”We are not persuaded that the act of maintaining the functioning of, or engaging, using, and controlling, a jet ski, plainly excludes external factors that impact the nature of the maintenance or use, such as safety gear. In particular, removing the safety lanyard entirely halts the operation of the vessel and therefore is encompassed by “operate,” even under Verhonich’s narrow definition to mean only piloting the jet ski itself.Accordingly, we hold that the failure to wear a life jacket and the failure to attach a safety lanyard may both be considered in determining whether a vessel has been operated negligently pursuant to 36 C.F.R. § 3.8(b)(8).
