Son of Art Southampton Founders Reported Missing in Florida

BY SHERRI LONON

The 14-year-old son of Art Southampton founders Nick Korniloff and Pamela Cohen has been reported missing after taking a boat trip to go fishing over the weekend in Florida.

Perry Cohen, who is a partial resident of Southampton, and Austin Stephanos filled up their boat with $110 of gasoline purchased in the Jupiter area Friday afternoon and haven’t been seen since.

The search for the missing 14-year-olds is now entering its sixth day with officials from the U.S. Coast Guard acknowledging the situation has become “dire.” Even so, officials say they are not giving up.

“The search for (the) missing 14 YOs is an open and active search-and-rescue effort,” the coast guard posted as “breaking news” to its Twitter account Wednesday morning. “This case has not been suspended.”

On Tuesday evening, Capt. Mark Fedor, chief of response for the Coast Guard 7th district, also stressed the search was continuing. “We’re constantly reevaluating the situation to determine our next course of action, however as each hour goes by, the situation becomes dire.”

Fedor’s comments came after the guard had completed a total of 39 search patterns in its hunt for the two boys. Coast Guard crews with support from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, Customs and Border Protection, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office have covered nearly 31,000 square nautical miles, spanning from Jupiter, Fla., to Charleston, S.C., with no luck locating the boys as of yet.

On Sunday, a Coast Guard crew out of Clearwater found the boys’ 19-foot boat capsized about 67 nautical miles off the coast of Ponce Inlet. A single life jacket was found floating in the water, but there was no trace of the boys.

While the situation is becoming bleak, the boys’ families are holding out hope.

“They are extremely athletic and knowledgeable about the water and we know that they are doing everything that they possibly can to stay afloat and wait for us to come and get them,” WESH.com quoted Pamela Cohen, Perry’s mother, as saying.

The families are offering a $100,000 reward for the safe return of their sons. They are also asking anyone who sees anything “unusual” in the waters off the east coast to report in with local officials immediately.

NFL Hall of Famer Joe Namath has even issued a plea to raise awareness about the boys’ disappearance. The teens, he said during a news conference, are experienced boaters. Namath is Cohen’s neighbor.

Namath was also holding out hope the boys will be found safe.

“We’ve got to believe in their wherewithal, and we have some confidence in that area, no doubt,” he said during the conference. “The good Lord’s got to help us out.”

Photos of Perry Cohen (photo 1) and Austin Stephanos courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard