What was supposed to be a vacation turned into a nightmare, but it’s finally over.
A Georgia college student who was arrested in the Cayman Islands for violating COVID-19 quarantine restrictions arrived back home last week, according to Fox News.
18-year-old Skylar Mack and her 24-year-old boyfriend Vanjae Ramgeet, a professional jet-skier from the Cayman Islands, were released from prison on January 15 after a month-long prison sentence.
The couple was originally served a four-month sentence, which was later reduced to two months; however, they ended up only serving one month.
Both are now required to complete 40 hours of community service and pay $4,400 in fines.
Mack, a pre-med student at Mercer University, was arrested for knowingly violating the islands’ mandatory coronavirus protocols to watch her boyfriend compete.
She was supposed to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival to the island on November 27, but authorities say she removed her tracking device on November 29 to go watch the water sports event.
She was reportedly at the event for several hours without a mask or social distancing.
The teen struggled to cope with her time in jail, according to her family.
“The stress, scared, she’s scared to death over there,” Mack’s mother, Rebecca, said. “She’s by herself; there’s no family there whatsoever to speak of.”
In a January 7 statement, the Cayman Islands government announced Mack and Ramgeet would be released.
“Both will be released from prison on 15 January and Miss Mack will depart Cayman that same day,” the statement said.
Mack’s grandmother, Jeanne, said that she reached out to the White House for help, and is relieved to have her granddaughter home.
“It’s the biggest relief I finally slept through the night,” Jeanne said in an ABC News interview. “And it’s kind of hard to fall asleep when someone you love so much you know that they’re not sleeping, and that they’re uncomfortable and I know she’s a tough girl but she had to be scared.”
In a Good Morning America interview, Mack admits she was wrong.
.@ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: “The anger, the disappointment. It’s all justified.”
American teen Skylar Mack admits she was wrong by violating Cayman Islands’ quarantine rules — a “mistake” which eventually landed her in prison. @janai reports. https://t.co/tKqKabdGAe pic.twitter.com/i09R0hncBb
— Good Morning America (@GMA) January 19, 2021
“I deserved it, I was like, you know what? I made this mistake and it sucks, you know, but you did it to yourself,” she said.
“It was a conscious decision…I can’t give you any good reason for it,” she added.
“I would have never been able to live with myself knowing that I could’ve been the reason that somebody could’ve even just been sick,” she said. “It eats me up.”
Mack is prohibited from returning to the island as long as the borders remain closed due to COVID-19.
