If you were lurking around the Consumerist pages last November, you may remember the tale of a drunken cruise line passenger who thought it would be hilarious to release the anchor (it wasn’t). Now that the issue has come before the courts, the passenger’s lawyer is pulling the honesty card and calling his client out for being a rich moron.

“He’s guilty of felony stupidity — that he is,” the man’s lawyer told the Tampa Tribune after he filed a motion to have charges dismissed. “But I don’t think it should be a federal crime.”

In addition to dropping the anchor — which required breaking into a control room, putting on work gloves and going through a several step process — the passenger also tossed a life buoy into the water. His shenanigans caused the ship’s crew to sound the emergency alarm and call all passengers and crew to the deck for a head count at 7:30 a.m.

“He’s got a lot of money. It was a silly thing to do,” his lawyer explains. “It’s silly. He’s not denying he did it.”

The lawyer contends that, while releasing the anchor on the moving ship could have done significant damage, it ultimately did not do any damage. The only harm done was that the passenger ticked off all the passengers and crew.

“Everybody was mad at him,” he admits. “Where’s the crime?”

Attorney: Ship prank wasn’t federal crime [Tampa Tribune]

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