US student imprisoned for breaching Cayman Islands quarantine rules gets reduced sentence

Appeals court agreed four months in prison was ‘not appropriate’, says Skylar Mack’s attorney Jonathan Hughes

An American university student imprisoned for breaching lockdown measures in the Cayman Islands, has had her prison sentence cut in half.

Skylar Mack, an 18-year-old pre-med student at Mercer University in Georgia, was arrested on 29 November after she broke Cayman Islands quarantine rules to attend her 24-year-old boyfriend Vanjae Ramgeet’s jet ski competition.

Both Ms Mack and Mr Ramgeet, who is a resident on the island, were sentenced to four months in prison last week, after she pleaded guilty to breaking a 14-day isolation period required of all visitors. Mr Ramgeet was convicted of aiding and abetting her.

However, Ms Mack’s attorney Jonathan Hughes told CBS News on Tuesday that the student and her boyfriend will only serve two months in prison, after their four-month sentences were reduced at an appeals court earlier that day.

Mr Hughes said the appeals court agreed that the original four-month sentence “was not appropriate”, considering the circumstances of the case.

He added: “Whilst it was our hope that Skylar would be able to return home to resume her studies in January, we accept the decision of the court and look forward to receiving its written reasons in due course.”

When she arrived on the island in late November, Ms Mack signed a document agreeing to not leave her place of isolation without permission and to not take off her tracking wristband until her quarantine was over. 

She tested negative for Covid-19 when she arrived on the island, but still had to complete the mandatory isolation.

According to authorities on the Carribean British Territory, Ms Mack broke coronavirus measures just two days after she arrived, having requested a looser wristband the day before the breach.

Both Ms Mack and Mr Ramgeet were initially sentenced to 40 hours of community service and given a $2,600 (£1,947) fine each, but after anger from local residents and an appeal from prosecutors, judge Roger Chapple gave the pair four-month prison sentences.

“The gravity of the breach was such that the only appropriate sentence would have been one of immediate imprisonment,” judge Roger Chapple said on the decision.

The four-month sentence was condemned by Ms Mack’s family, who claimed that she was being treated unfairly.

Ms Mack’s family asked US President Donald Trump to intervene in the case, while her grandmother, Jeanne Mack, told NBC’s Today on Monday: “She just wants to come home.”

She added: “She knows she made a mistake, she owns up to that, but she's pretty hysterical right now.”

Since the start of the pandemic, the Cayman Islands has recorded 316 cases of coronavirus and only two deaths. More than 280 Covid-19 patients have already recovered.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there are now more than 18.2 million people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in the US. The death toll has reached 322,849.