November 3, 2020 — After a five-month ordeal in which he was imprisoned in the British Virgin Islands, Stafford fisherman Michael Foy accepted a plea deal Friday and is free to go, aside from paying a $4,000 fine.
Foy, 60, was arrested June 8 by British Virgin Islands custom officials and charged with illegal entry for violating the islands’ COVID-19 curfew.
He was subsequently charged with unregistered and unlicensed fishing, and failure to arrive at a customs port.
The Magistrates Court dropped the illegal fishing charges on Oct. 9. Foy’s attorney Paul Edwards of the law firm Hunte & Co. on Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands, said Foy accepted a plea deal that would allow him to keep his fishing vessel, Rebel Lady.