By Samuel Newhouse
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BOROUGH HALL — Surrounded by feces and urine in an Antiguan prison cell, Mike Pierre-Paul and Joshua Jackson were told by a cellmate that if they didn’t find a lawyer right away, their female companions would be raped that night in jail.
It was the beginning of a month-long nightmare for the so-called “Antigua 6” — six friends from Brooklyn who were arrested after getting into a scuffle with plainclothes police officers, while on vacation in Antigua.
“We slept in feces and urine that had been there so long, it wasn’t urine, it was ammonia,” said Shoshanna Henry, a student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. At Friday’s press conference at Borough Hall, Shoshanna and her friends displayed the scars that remain on their legs from severe bug bites received in jail.
The six finally returned home to Brooklyn last week, and were welcomed Friday morning by family, friends and local politicians. Joshua Jackson, 25, Shoshanna Henry, 24, Rachel Henry, 27, Nancy Lalanne, 22, Dolores Lalanne, 25, and Mike Pierre-Paul, 25, are the six friends who survived the hellish month.
U.S. Congressman Edolphus Towns, along with a Salt Lake City congressman, had flown to Antigua last week to help broker the plea deal that got the six released after local politicians, community leaders and media commentators rallied around an effort to free the so-called ‘Antigua 6.’
The eventual agreement freed the six on the condition that they pled guilty and paid $2,300 in fines, all arising from the Sept. 4 fracas.
Politicians and family members at Friday’s press conference stressed that the six were law-abiding citizens who accidentally got into a bad situation while trying to have a little fun on a cruise that they had saved up for with honest hard work.
“The only thing these people are guilty of is self-defense, self-defense, self-defense,” said community activist and aspiring politician Kevin Powell. Powell, a controversial character on the first-ever MTV reality show series Real World, lost in a primary election to Congressman Towns. He too traveled to Antigua.
According to the ‘6’, when the cruise ship stopped over on the island of Antigua, they decided to explore the island. Along with six other friends, they hired a cabbie to drive them to an ATV (all-terrain vehicle) rental shop for $50.
After a long, winding drive to nowhere and a stop on the beach without finding a shop, the cabbie drove them back to their cruise boat. When they tried to pay, the cabbie allegedly demanded $100 instead of $50.
An argument broke out, and they reportedly asked to be brought to police or let out. Shoshanna Henry described the cabbie as “Driving recklessly … he popped a hard right, then another hard right, and pulled into an alley … it was destitute.”
In the alley, men and women began to appear, but unbeknownst to the tourists, they were plainclothes police officers. A scuffle ensued as the officers began raining blows on the tourists, according to the ‘6’.
However, the tourists were accused of striking police officers who were discharging their duty. Members of the ‘6’ were charged with battery, malicious damage, indecent language, disorderly conduct and other crimes.
Defense attorney Steadroy “Cutie” Benjamin, who Carnival Cruise Lines helped hire for the ‘6’, begged for lenience and defended the tourists’ side of events.
He also argued that “f-----g n----r” was considered a colloquial insult in the tourists’ environment, according to Caribarena.com, but Chief Magistrate Judge Ivan Walters said it was still highly unacceptable and worthy of the indecent-language charge.
Magistrate Walters told the tourists they could have spared themselves a hassle by accepting responsibility sooner.
“Had you pleaded guilty from the onset, you would have been reprimanded and discharged and would have long returned home,” Walters said.
During the trial, the ‘6’ stayed with Antiguans who volunteered to house them.
Carnival Cruise Lines reportedly stopped docking its cruise ships on Antigua a few weeks after this incident, although they denied any connection to the Antigua 6 case in that decision.
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© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2009
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Just a reminder, though -- It’s not considered polite to paste the entire story on your blog. Most blogs post a summary or the first paragraph,( 40 words) then post a link to the rest of the story. That helps increase click-throughs for everyone, and minimizes copyright issues. So please keep posting, but not the entire article. arturc at att.net