ATLANTA — After being sentenced to four months in prison for violating COVID-19 guidelines in the Cayman Islands, a Georgia teenager and her boyfriend appealed, hoping to have charges against them thrown out.
Instead, the judge reduced the sentence for 18-year-old Skylar Mack from Walton County and 24-year-old Vanjae Ramgeet from the Cayman Islands reduced to two months.
"After the sentence was imposed, she was very distraught. She was crying in her hands," said Andrel Harris, a journalist for the Cayman Compass newspaper. "I could hear her. She was a few feet away. I could hear her saying, 'I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore.'"
Harris attended the appeals hearing.
"The task the court had to execute was one that would provide deterrence to ensure other like-minded people would not seek to breach COVID-19 regulations," he said.
Guidelines set by the British Territory required the teenager to quarantine for 14 days when she arrived. Officials said that after only two days, Mack took off a monitoring bracelet that electronically tracks anyone arriving in the territory. According to their attorney, Jonathon Hughes, Ramgeet picked her up and took her to go watch him compete in a jet-ski competition.
Officials said Mack was not wearing a mask and came into contact with dozens of people.
Those actions led to her original four-month sentence.
Harris said Harris argued the sentence was excessive. He also said the judge considered other factors, including international outcry, character witnesses, and the letters of apology -- each of which played a role in getting the teenager's sentence reduced.
"Although they have been sentenced to two months in prison, the standard practice is that once a prisoner serves two-thirds of their sentence -- providing that they have behaved appropriately, then they might be eligible for parole or being released early," Harris said.
The couple has been in custody for a week at this point, Harris said. They are facing an additional four weeks in prison.
Mack, a pre-med honors student, enrolled at Mercer University in Macon, left court crying, according to Harris.
"It took a few minutes for them to calm her down before she could be brought back downstairs and escorted into the van," Harris said.
According to the newspaper, during the original sentencing last week, Mack's decision to violate safety measures was borne of "selfishness and arrogance," referring to her decision to remove her electronic tracking device.
Attorney Hughes said Mack's family is concerned.
“They’re worried for her because she’s in prison in a foreign country on her own," he said. "While this is something she brought on herself, it’s very distressing for her."
Last week, the girl's grandmother, Jeanne Mack, told the Associated Press she had reached out to U.S. President Donald Trump and received an email from a White House staffer saying the administration would look into the matter.
The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory of about 62,000 people located in the western Caribbean Sea to the south of Cuba. The territory has reported more than 300 coronavirus cases and two deaths.