Biotech millionaire and UM donor owns boat that killed teenager off Key Biscayne

The boat towing student Ransom Everglades, who died in a boating accident in Biscayne Bay earlier this month, is owned by a renowned biotech entrepreneur who lives in a $23 million home in Miami Beach, is a donor to the University of Miami and owns a 182-foot superyacht in addition to the vessel involved in the accident off Key Biscayne.

Jonathan Rothberg, 61, who made his fortune by founding several genomics and medical technology companies, is the owner of the 42-foot black 2017 Hanse Fjord that was towing 15-year-old Ella Riley Adler in the water when she was struck and killed by another boat near Nixon Beach on Key Biscayne, according to international, federal and state records.

READ MORE: ‘The world was robbed’: Family mourns girl killed in boating accident near Key Biscayne

While maritime authorities have identified the boat owner who allegedly left the scene after striking Ella, a freshman at Ransom Everglades School in Coconut Grove, they have not yet released the name of the owner of the boat on which Ella was spending the day on the water with friends.

However, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the state law enforcement agency investigating the accident, had included the vessel’s registration number in its initial accident report.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection log shows that in 2021, a boat with the registration number of this vessel left West Palm Beach for the Caribbean island of St. Barthélemy.

The vessel’s name is “T/T Gene Chaser.” Records from the Cayman Islands, where the boat is registered, link a company of the same name to Rothberg. Rothberg’s yachts – the Gene Chaser and the Gene Machine – have attracted a lot of attention in the boating, science and business press in recent years, especially since he transformed them into floating science labs during the pandemic.

As of Tuesday evening, Rothberg had not responded to numerous requests for comment from the Miami Herald.

The 42-foot boat towing Ella and another girl is a tender, a smaller boat used to shuttle between one larger boat and another. In this case, it’s Rothberg’s Gene Chaser, a 182-foot superyacht built in 2020. Photos of the Gene Chaser show the fjord, as well as a 20-foot inflatable boat, a landing craft and a fleet of jet skis, all of which fit on the sizable aft deck.

Two girls in the water at the same time

The FWC report says 30-year-old Edmund Richard Hartley was piloting the Fjord, which towed Ella and the other girl behind the boat about 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 11, about a mile west of Mashta Point off Key Biscayne. Ella was on a wakeboard and the other girl was on a wakesurf board, the report said.

The girls fell off their boards at different times and locations and were both in the water at the same time, the report said. The identity of the other girl was not disclosed in the report.

Another boat traveling west “struck the wakeboarder who was in the water further away” from the boat that was towing her, the report said. Ella succumbed to her injuries.

On the boat with Hartley were Emma Roberts, 30; Sebastian Pearce, 21; seven 15-year-olds and three 14-year-olds. One of the girls on the boat was Rothberg’s daughter, a classmate of Ella’s at Ransom Everglades who, according to the report, had her 15th birthday the day before the boat trip.

Ella was the granddaughter of Michael Adler, the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. Michael Adler was formerly president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and vice chairman of the board of trustees of Florida International University.

Hundreds attended Ella’s funeral at Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach, where Rabbi Jonathan Berkun, rabbi of the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center, called her “a force of nature, a radiant and gorgeous young woman who was loved, admired, cherished and revered by more people than would normally be the case for someone her age.”

First Lady Jill Biden sat shiva with the Adlers.

Captain’s background as a pilot boat

It is not clear if Rothberg hired Hartley as captain. The Miami Herald contacted Hartley but did not receive a response.

Hartley, who is from London, studied at the United Kingdom Sailing Academy and the Glasgow Maritime Academy in Scotland, according to his Facebook profile. The page also says he works in the superyacht industry. A source familiar with the matter said Hartley is certified by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in the UK to captain a vessel of up to 3,000 gross tons.

According to the FWC investigation report, 78-year-old Carlos Alonso, who lives on the water in Coral Gables near Matheson Hammock Park, was piloting the 42-foot 2020 Boston Whaler that struck and killed Ella.

READ MORE: Gables man piloted boat that struck, killed Ransom Everglades student: FWC report

Alonso’s defense attorney Lauren Field Krasnoff had previously told the Miami Herald that Alonso “has no idea he was involved in this accident.” If he had realized he had hit someone on the water, he “definitely would have stopped.”

READ MORE: Man accused of driving boat that killed 15-year-old girl off Key Biscayne Who is he?

“Bill is a good man and he is absolutely devastated by the loss of this intelligent, educated and beautiful young woman,” Field Krasnoff told the Herald. “He has cooperated 100% with law enforcement and will continue to do so.”

The FWC said its investigation is ongoing and the agency has not yet arrested anyone.

A scientist – and multimillionaire

In 2021, Rothberg moved from Connecticut to South Florida and purchased a $23.5 million home near the Venetian Causeway, according to Miami-Dade property records.

An article on the UM website states that Rothberg was an attempt to “stimulate innovation by building close relationships with the University of Miami community.”

His donation to the UM’s College of Engineering led to the founding of the Miami Engineering Rothberg Catalyzer Award, which funds biotech projects by UM students and graduates. The first winners consisted of 13 teams, each receiving $5,000 to advance their projects.

Rothberg has made headlines with his superyacht Gene Machine, which features a fully functioning biology lab and team of scientists on board. During the pandemic in 2020, Rothberg and his team spent most of the year on the superyacht developing a low-cost, at-home coronavirus testing kit.

In 2016, President Obama awarded Rothberg the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his work in developing rapid, low-cost DNA sequencing technology.

Rothberg earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and master’s and doctoral degrees in biology from Yale University.

Born into a family of entrepreneurs, Rothberg holds more than 400 patents. The founder of several major genomics and DNA sequencing companies, Rothberg began his career as a graduate student at Yale in 1991 when he founded CuraGen, then one of the first genomics companies, according to a UM article about him.

CuraGen went public in 1999 with a valuation of $5 billion.

“I have spent my career developing groundbreaking solutions to improve the lives of the people I love,” the UM article states.

A Miami Herald photo of a boat docked behind Jonathan Rothberg’s home, originally published with this story, incorrectly identified the boat as the one towing Ella Riley Adler when she was killed by another boat while wakeboarding off Key Biscayne on Saturday, May 11, 2024. While Rothberg owns the boat Adler was towing, it was not the boat shown in the photo.