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Cruise ship passenger fined for swearing at arresting officer

The Norwegian Breakaway in Dockyard yesterday. (Photo by Akil Simmons)

A 25-year-old American cruise ship passenger has been fined $500 for calling a police officer a “f***ing stupid b***h.”

Chelsea Vega, 25, who arrived in Bermuda aboard the Norwegian Breakaway, was arrested by police and Customs officers as part of an investigation into possible drugs on board the ship.

Vega said she was not told why she was being arrested, and that the arresting officer repeatedly ignored her cries of pain when placed in handcuffs, intimating that the officer intentionally tried to hurt her by twisting the middle part of the handcuffs. Vega said that it was only after she repeatedly informed the officer that she was being hurt that she began cursing.

“You f***ing stupid b***h. You’re hurting me, you b***h,” Vega admitted saying.

She was also charged with violently resisting arrest, a charge that was questioned by Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner, who said that Vega did not become violent and only struggled when she was in pain. Crown counsel Loxly Ricketts eventually chose to enter no evidence on the charge.

Police eventually found two grams of marijuana within her cabin’s safe, which was subsequently claimed by the man sharing her cabin, Vega told Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner fined Vega $500 for the offence.