Behind steel bars. (Photo via iStock/Getty Images Plus/Rattankun Thongbun)
Laurie Baratti
Travel Pulse
The Cayman Islands evidently isn’t fooling around when it comes to enforcing its COVID-19 quarantine rules. Just this week, A U.S. college student and her boyfriend were sentenced to four months in prison after they violated the islands’ strict COVID-19 measures.
Skylar Mack, an 18-year-old from Georgia, and Vanjae Ramgeet, a 24-year-old Cayman national, have been in prison since December 15, when the ruling was passed. Both had pled guilty to the charges against them, but their attorney, Jonathan Hughes, said that he’ll be appealing the ruling and arguing for a less severe sentence.
“They’re two young people who have never been in trouble before,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “This is the first time they’ve had interaction with police, the courts, prison.”
A pre-med student at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, Mack arrived in the Cayman Islands on November 27. As an international arrival, she was required to complete a 14-day quarantine, as mandated by the government. Instead, she broke quarantine on November 29 to attend a watersports event with her boyfriend, Hughes admitted. Read more >>