Man trying to enter U.S. gets jail time

BANGOR – A man from Bermuda who stole a boat in an effort to cross into Maine from Canada was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to a year in prison.

Jeremy Gene Whitecross, 30, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Bangor to illegally entering the United States after having been refused entry, according to a press release issued Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

His sentence also includes one year of supervised release and a $100 fine. Whitecross will be deported, according to the release.

On July 17, Whitecross stole a small boat from a wharf in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, and traveled up the St. Croix River to Robbinston. He landed the boat near an abandoned sardine cannery and began hitchhiking on Route 1, according to court documents.

U.S. Border Patrol agents were notified of the boat theft and located Whitecross walking on the road, the documents state.

Whitecross turned away when the border patrol vehicle passed him and hid in some tall weeds in a roadside ditch, the documents state. After agents approached him and told to him show his hands, Whitecross reportedly said, “I’m only sleeping here.”

His clothes were wet, and a search of his backpack turned up a birth certificate from Bermuda and a British passport, according to court documents.

At the Calais border patrol station, a computer search showed that Whitecross had been refused entry to the U.S. the day before based on his criminal history in Bermuda.

Whitecross was sentenced in 1998 to nine months in prison in Bermuda for fraud and check forgery, according to court documents. Later that year, he was convicted of stealing two motorcycles and a car and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, the documents state.

Also involved in the apprehension were the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Integrated Border Enforcement Team.