One of Bermuda's well known lawyers was held in a US Customs cell for almost 24 hours when an aircraft he was flying on was diverted to New York, a place he is forbidden to enter.

Defence lawyer Charles Richardson left Bermuda Saturday night on Zoom airlines headed to London but arrived in New York after a faulty warning light caused the plane to land.

Mr. Richardson, a lawyer at Juris Law, said the inconvenience the other passengers experienced was nothing compared to what he faced. Once he got off the plane, he was taken to a holding room for half an hour and then placed in a cell because of a drug possession conviction from 1993.

Mr. Richardson said he disclosed information about a firearms conviction — for which he served time in Westgate, earning his law degree while incarcerated — to the officers but it wasn't on their records. His inclusion on the US stop list was tied simply to the drug charge.

The lawyer said he was outraged at the situation because he never asked to go to New York and he vowed never to fly with the budget carrier again. "Honestly speaking, I never asked to go to the US and Zoom's f**k up landed me in the US and led me to be arrested and I had done nothing wrong," he said.

While the other passengers stayed in a hotel, he was placed in a cell with a metal bed from 2 a.m. when the plane landed until close to midnight when it took off.

"No Zoom representative came over to have a personal conversation with me or anything," he said. "Customs were prepared to escort me to any gate in the airport to get me home but nobody from Zoom came."

Mr. Richardson said the Customs officers aggressively called the Zoom agents to no avail. He also said the officers explained they could take his debit card over to a ticket counter and purchase a flight for him but, because he was Zoom's responsibility, the airline had to deal with him.

"The way I was treated was f*****g horrible," he said.