COVID Criminals — Island Infection Controls, Jails And Jet Skis
By: Andy Killoran
Tags: True Crime, Romance, Coronavirus, Crime, Jail

COVID Criminals — Island Infection Controls, Jails And Jet Skis

What lengths would you go to in order to see your loved one during Covid-19?

Photo by David White on Unsplash

At almost the same time on opposite sides of the Atlantic, two people wanting to see their significant others crossed the water to get to them, headed to remote islands and ended up in jail. In both cases, the British-territory islands were under COVID restrictions, and the visitors fell foul of local rules and regulations. Also, in both cases, the visitors ended up in jail.

On November 27th and after a negative COVID test before departing and another negative test on arrival, 18-year-old American Skyler Mack flew from the USA to Grand Cayman, the largest island in the British-territory Cayman Islands in the western Caribbean.

The Cayman Islands is a group of three islands, south of Cuba in the Caribbean, which are an autonomous British Overseas Territory. The population is about 65,000. They have their own Parliament and currency. HM Queen Elizabeth is Head of State.

Mack is a pre-med student at Mercer University and daughter of Dennis Mack, professional jet ski racer. She was travelling from her home in Georgia to see her boyfriend, Vanjae Ramgeet, a 24-year-old Cayman resident. He was competing in a jet ski event there. Ramgeet is also a professional jet ski racer.

Vanjae Ramgeet — public domain, fair use

Skyler Mack — image, Facebook

The rules for people arriving in the Caymans during this global Coronavirus pandemic require the negative tests and also 14-days self-isolation before mixing with the general population.

One day after starting self-isolation, Mack asked for her location tracking device’s wrist band to be changed. She said it was too tight. The following day, day two of 14 for self-isolation, she removed the device and left it in her accommodation, heading for the beach at South Sound to watch her boyfriend compete. At the event, people told Police that Mack was at the beach for some seven hours, mingling with the crowd, not social-distancing and not wearing a face mask.

Cayman parliament had on November 28th enacted a law, increasing penalties for non-compliance with COVID regulation. The maximum fine had risen from $1,000 to $10,000 and the maximum jail-time from one year to two. Mack and Ramgeet committed their offences the following day.

The territory had seen 316 cases in total since the start of the pandemic and only two deaths. There has been no local transmission since July.

Police officers arrested both Mack and Ramgeet and put them before the Court, where the girl-and-boyfriend both pleaded guilty. The prosecutor told the Court the behaviour shown by Mack and Ramgeet was suggestive of ‘selfishness and arrogance’. The Court handed Mack and Ramgeet punishments of a $2,600 fine each (the standard cost of 14-days quarantine in the Government facilities) and 40 hours of Community Service. $2,600 Cayman Islands dollars is about $3,100 US.

The prosecutor immediately appealed the sentence, saying it was too lenient. The Cayman Islands Court of Appeal heard the case on Monday, December 14th. In the ruling on December 15th, the Court set aside the $2,600 fine and 40-hour Community Service and ordered that both Mack and Ramgeet should serve four months in jail for their offences.

Protests were made, with Ms Mack’s grandmother Jeanne Mack appealing to U.S. President Donald J Trump to intervene.

Grandmother Mrs Mack explained that her granddaughter understood that she had made a mistake and deserved punishment by the Court. The family were not asking for the Court to except Mack from the penalty; the reverse, they were calling out that she was the subject of an exception.

Ms Mack and Mr Ramgeet were the first people the Courts had jailed in the Caymans for these offences. The family thought Courts and prosecutors were unfairly using this couple to set an example and send a warning.

There was a further appeal to the Court by defence attorneys to re-review the sentences, as they were considered too harsh. The defence told the Court that both of the young people had already suffered. Ms Mack had paid the fine out of her savings, depleting them considerably. Mr Ramgeet has been stripped of his first-place win in the jet ski competition, with some bans in place, affecting him in the following years’ competition. Both had also received hate mail and even death threats. Also, Ms Mack was a student and wanted to be able to continue with her studies in January 2021.

The Court reduced the sentence from four-to-two months for both persons. If the sentence the Court gives is less than a year, a release is possible once the criminal has served 60-per cent of the time. Because of the 60-per-cent rule, jails could release both Mack and Ramgeet in the third week of January. Mack will be subject to removal from the territory on release and may not return during the COVID emergency.

Mack’s family have been at pains to stress that they do not think she was innocent, nor are they saying that she should not have been punished by the Court, only that they did not feel that the sentence of four months in prison met the crime.