Anna Kepner Indictment: The Federal Defense Waiver Examined
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida has indicted a sixteen-year-old on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse in the death of eighteen-year-old Anna Kepner aboard the Carnival Horizon. The case, which originated in juvenile court, was transferred to adult court after the accused executed a written waiver of his right to contest the transfer. Defense counsel co-signed the waiver, effectively forgoing all appellate remedies related to the jurisdictional question.
The indictment arises from events that allegedly occurred on or about November 6–7, 2025, while the vessel was in international waters en route to Miami. Federal jurisdiction attaches under the Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction of the United States. The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office determined the cause of death to be mechanical asphyxiation. If convicted on both counts, the accused faces a maximum penalty of life in federal prison.
The accused was initially released into the custody of a relative under GPS monitoring and conditions prohibiting unsupervised contact with minors. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has filed a motion seeking revocation of pretrial release, characterizing the charged offenses as the most egregious crimes one person can inflict upon another and asserting the defendant poses a continuing danger. Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis provides legal analysis of the waiver’s strategic implications, the pretrial detention motion, and the procedural framework governing federal prosecution of minors transferred to adult jurisdiction.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Bruske and Robin Drey. |
| 0:08.7 | The cruise ship murder, Anna Kempner's 16-year-old stepbrother, has been indicted as an adult on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated ass abuse. |
| 0:19.3 | But it's what the defense did that nobody is talking about. |
| 0:23.7 | Newly unsealed court record show the accused signed a written waiver requesting to be |
| 0:30.3 | prosecuted as an adult, giving up the right to fight the transfer or appeal it. |
| 0:37.0 | His attorney co-signed it for a teenager now facing |
| 0:39.9 | life in federal prison. That's the picture raises a question. I think we deserve an answer to. |
| 0:46.2 | Why would you volunteer for that? Because it's the right thing to do? Is that what's going on here? |
| 0:53.1 | There's a lot of questions I have about |
| 0:55.7 | the levers that are being pulled in this case. Joining us to discuss, of course, my co-host, |
| 1:03.9 | Robin Drake, retired FBI special agency for the counterintelligence behavioral analysis program. |
| 1:08.7 | And Eric Fattis is with us, defense attorney and former prosecutor. |
| 1:13.9 | Eric, help us make sense of this. Most people here charged as an adult and assumed the prosecution |
| 1:18.3 | forced it or the court said this is what we're going to be doing. But the court record show the |
| 1:22.6 | kids signed a waiver asking to be tried as an adult and the defense team co-signed it. |
| 1:28.5 | Why on earth would a defense attorney let a 16-year-old facing life in prison volunteer for that? |
| 1:34.5 | Or is this, did they really not have much of a choice in the matter when it came down to it? |
| 1:40.2 | Tony, this is a real head scratcher. |
| 1:42.6 | It's hard to envision what benefits. a criminal defendant originally charged as a juvenile |
| 1:48.2 | would receive if they voluntarily wanted to really escalate their case to being charged |
| 1:55.9 | as an adult. |
| 1:56.9 | The only thing that kind of comes to mind is perhaps they thought that the public defenders in the adult division may be more skilled, maybe more experienced in homicide cases than the public defenders in the juvenile division. |
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