A 69-year-old grandmother spent a number of days within the notorious Bahamian Fox Hill Jail after she was arrested for bringing a gun on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.
On December 2, Mary Robinson forgot to depart her pistol in her automotive earlier than she went by means of safety in Port Everglades. Troublingly, port safety didn’t detect the gun, permitting Robinson to board Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas with the weapon.
Later within the day, Bahamian authorities had been alerted of a passenger with a gun and boarded the cruise ship at Prince George Wharf in Nassau, in accordance with a police report. As soon as onboard, Robinson was recognized and subsequently arrested after being present in possession of a loaded gun (a black Kel-Tec .380 pistol) in her purse.
Robinson’s lawyer, Bjorn Ferguson, advised PEOPLE that firearm possession expenses within the Bahamas have sentencing penalties of 1 to 10 years and that he was in a position to negotiate an $8,000 effective as an alternative of jail time.
Robinson didn’t pay the effective the day of the listening to, so she went to Fox Hill Jail for 5 to 6 days, in accordance with Ferguson. In 2020, the U.S. State Division described situations at Fox Hill Jail as harsh and degrading citing overcrowding, poor sanitation, insufficient medical care, and therapy that falls beneath worldwide human-rights requirements.
Robinson paid the effective and was launched on December 8 thanks largely to her granddaughter, Graci Exendine, who began a GoFundMe that has raised over $12,000.
Exendine writes about her grandmother, “She went on a cruise for her adopted son Johnny’s twelfth birthday. She is 69 years outdated and on her journeys she often deliver some sort of safety however often leaves it within the automotive because you aren’t allowed to deliver it on the ship. Nicely by accident she didn’t go away it and it was present in her bag after they checked on the Bahamas and she or he was arrested. She has a courtroom date for tomorrow but when she is fined and launched, I’ve to provide you with $10,000 to pay her effective or she is going to go to the Bahamas jail.”
Bahamian officers have a historical past of apprehending American vacationers and giving them the selection of jail time or a effective. Sometimes, the shakedown includes petty marijuana expenses with a effective of a number of hundred to a thousand {dollars} or a pair months in jail. A gun cost abroad is critical in nature nevertheless it’s unsurprising Robinson was let off with a hefty effective.
The query is how grandmother Robinson’s firearm managed to get by means of safety in Port Everglades and onto the Royal Caribbean cruise ship. One clarification could also be that safety is dealt with by the respective cruise traces, on this case, Royal Caribbean, which has not issued an announcement regardless of a number of publications requesting for feedback.
The favored Royal Caribbean Weblog reported that earlier this yr, a visitor on the Oasis of the Seas was arrested in Aruba for making an attempt to board the ship with a firearm.
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