Judge to set trial date for Busan pilot, operator

Judge to set trial date for Busan pilot, operator A San Francisco federal court will convene a hearing today to set a trail date in the federal felony case against the port pilot at the helm of the COSCO Busan when the vessel struck the Oakland Bay Bridge last year.
   Capt. John Cota and Fleet Management Ltd., the firm operating the vessel, face eight criminal charges of negligence in connection to the Nov. 7, 2007 collision, which resulted in the container vessel discharging more than 50,000 gallons of bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay.
   The spill closed dozens of local beaches, killed thousands of birds including federal and state protected species, and resulted in cleanup costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
   Cota, charged with lying about the medications he was taking and his medical condition to federal authorities, has pleaded not guilty. A pretrial motion filed last month by Cota's lawyers seeking to have the trial moved out of San Francisco was rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston.
   Hong Kong-based FML is charged by federal prosecutors with falsifying documents to cover up alleged negligence in connection with the crash. Last month, Illston rejected the firm's offer to plead no-contest to the charges, which would have barred the conviction from being used to set damages in pending civil litigation.
   The trial was originally scheduled to begin on Nov. 17, but Cota's attorney successfully argued before Illston that the date was too close to the anniversary of the collision. Attorneys for FTL also argued that they needed more time to prepare a defense.