HOUSTON — A man who tried to strangle and suffocate a woman aboard a cruise ship off the coast of Galveston is going to federal prison.
A federal judge in Houston sentenced 45-year-old Hector Fernando Blanco to three years for assault.
Blanco pleaded guilty and admitted he tried to kill the woman during their 2018 trip aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas.
He put his hand and then a bath towel over the victim’s mouth, then twisted a towel around her neck and dragged her around the floor of the cabin. Blanco tripped and the woman was able to run out of the cabin and get help.
“No excuse can justify Hector Blanco’s violent actions that turned a dream vacation into a dreadful nightmare for his victim,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Perrye K. Turner.
Blanco, who’s from North Dakota, was allowed to remain on bond and voluntarily surrender to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.
