Oshkosh man convicted of all but one charge against him in 2022 powerboat-paddleboat crash
OSHKOSH – A Winnebago County jury found an Oshkosh man who crashed his boat into a two-story paddleboat on the Fox River in 2022 guilty of all but one charge against him.
Jason Lindemann, 53, was convicted Wednesday of two felony counts of second-degree recklessly endangering safety, as well as 11 misdemeanor counts of failing to render aid in a boating accident resulting in injury and one misdemeanor count of negligent operation of a boat.
Each of the failing to render aid counts correlated with a person who was injured in the boat crash. The jury acquitted Lindemann of one of the counts, based on testimony at trial.
The verdict came on the eighth day of trial, after about 6½ hours of jury deliberations.
Just before 10 p.m. July 9, 2022, Lindemann crashed his powerboat into a double-decker paddleboat owned and operated by On The Loos Cruises on the Fox River in Oshkosh, between the Oregon Street and Wisconsin Street bridges.
There were 44 passengers aboard the paddleboat. Lindemann's boat contained a total of seven people.
The paddleboat was able to dock quickly after the crash and move passengers to safety. No one suffered major injuries, but multiple people received treatment for injuries in the days and weeks following the crash.
Lindemann drove his boat away from the scene of the crash without stopping to share his identification information and check on any the injuries of people on the boat. He then spent the night on Lake Winnebago, before docking his boat at a marina he was not authorized to park in the following morning, prosecutors said.
Lindemann's defense attorney Scott Ceman argued at trial that Lindemann attempted to stop his boat after the crash but felt it was not safe to do so because passengers from On The Loos cruise acted aggressively toward him and his passengers. Ceman claimed people cursed and threw bottles at Lindemann's boat.
One of the injured crash victims was a man on Lindemann's boat, who had a cut on his forehead and was treated at the emergency room the night of the crash. Attorneys said Lindemann dropped off some of his passengers at the shore before returning to the lake to spend the night on the boat.
Because officers were unable to locate Lindemann the night of the crash, there is no record of whether or not he was operating his boat while intoxicated. However, state Assistant Attorneys General Emily Thompson and Tara Jenswold presented evidence at trial that Lindemann was drunk that night, including testimony from witnesses and security footage from a bar Lindemann was at earlier in the night, the Dockside Tavern, at 425 Nebraska St., which he owns.
Lindemann's sentencing hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Aug. 22.
Contact Kelli Arseneau at 920-213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @ArseneauKelli.
This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Oshkosh man convicted in 2022 crash between powerboat and paddleboat
