Jennifer Sellitti, a New Jersey public defender, now commands Atlantic Wreck Salvage after her partner, Joe Mazraani, died during a dive off Massachusetts on July 29, 2025.
Sellitti earned her law degree from Boston University in 1996 and spent two decades defending indigent clients before taking to the sea in 2015, when she met Mazraani, a fellow lawyer who had been salvaging wrecks since the mid‑1990s.
Together they repurposed the fishing vessel D/V Tenacious and mapped more than 5,400 wrecks, including the World War I troopship SS West Point and the bow of the MV Stockholm, the wreck that collided with the SS Andrea Doria in 1956. In 2024 the team located the 1856 French passenger steamer Le Lyonnais, a find that Sellitti chronicled in her book, The Adriatic Affair.
The fatal dive occurred when the crew was inspecting the so‑called Big Engine Steamer, roughly 200 miles from the Massachusetts coast. In the water Mazraani suffered a sudden medical emergency; after rescue attempts on the Tenacious he was pronounced dead. Sellitti said there was no equipment failure and that a full investigation was underway.
Since taking the helm, Sellitti has shifted the company’s focus to education and responsible salvage, while preparing for a September 2026 expedition to locate the 1856 French passenger steamer Le Lyonnais. She continues to practice law in New Jersey while managing the vessel’s operations.
A crew member who spent ten years on the Tenacious said, "She’s the same stern, no‑nonsense attorney she was in court, but now she’s fearless on the ocean."