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A jury found he violated the International Emergency Economic Powers Act by selling four rebreathing devices to Libyan businessmen in the wake of the Benghazi attack. His attorney plans an appeal.

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A Delray Beach man who is the former owner of a Fort Lauderdale dive shop has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for selling four underwater breathing devices to businessmen in Libya in violation of U.S. law.

Peter Sotis, who was convicted in October of three charges, including smuggling and attempting to export to Libya without a license, on Thursday was handed a 57-month sentence by U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz in Miami.

His office manager, Emilie Voissem, 45, of Sunrise was sentenced to five months in jail, to be followed by five months of house arrest, after being convicted by the same jury of identical charges.

Separately, the 57-year-old Sotis is being sued in connection with the 2017 diving death of Rob Stewart, an internationally known documentary filmmaker.

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Dive shop owner warned sale would be violation, prosecutors say

Before sending four rebreathing devices to Libya in August 2016, Sotis was repeatedly warned that the planned sale would violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, federal prosecutors said. The act allows the president to restrict exports to countries that are considered threats to the United States.

President Barack Obama put Libya on the list because of ongoing civil unrest, including terrorist activity, such as the deadly 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

The sale of the rebreathers violated the act because they can be used in military operations, prosecutors said. Unlike scuba tanks, rebreathers don’t produce bubbles while allowing divers to stay underwater for long periods of time.

“Sotis’ and Voissem’s attempt to export rebreathers to Libya was a national security offense,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Thakur wrote. 

Defense attorney: Devices not that kind used by Navy Seals, terrorists

Defense attorney Bruce Uldolf blasted the government’s handling of the case. Sotis, he said, posed no threat to the nation’s safety.

“There was no evidence these rebreathers were going to be for terrorism,” he said.

Instead, Sotis violated commerce laws which required him to be licensed to sell the devices, Udolf said.

The threat of Libya is real, he said. “But Ambassador (Christopher)Stevens and his colleague were killed by bullets, not rebreathers,” Udolf said of the Americans who died in the Benghazi attack.

The rebreathers Sotis sold for $112,000 were unlike those the Navy Seals and others use in military operations, he said.

Each had metal components and solenoids. That meant they were easily detectable by any form of sonar, including a “fish finder.”

“The solenoid itself is also quite noisy making its adaptation for surreptitious military use more of a bald contrivance and supposition than a reality,” Udolf wrote in court papers.

The devices never made it to Libya. They were intercepted in Amsterdam before they were delivered, Udolf said.

Calling the nearly five-year sentence “grossly disproportionate,” he said he would appeal it and Sotis’ conviction.

Dive shop owner being sued in filmmaker’s death

Sotis, who operated Add Helium dive shop before shuttering it in 2019, was with Stewart on a diving trip in the Florida Keys in Jan. 31, 2017, when the Canadian filmmaker and conservationist disappeared shortly after surfacing. His body was found days later on the ocean floor.

Both were using rebreathing devices, which can be difficult to use without proper training.

Sotis is among several people named in a wide-ranging lawsuit filed by Stewart’s family.

jmusgrave@pbpost.com

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