Now he’s up a creek.
A 22-year-old migrant was busted taking a historic fireboat on a wild journey down the Hudson River — earlier than getting caught and hopping onto a sailboat in Manhattan early Thursday, cops and sources mentioned.
Juan Hernandez, who’s homeless and hails from Ecuador, started his aquatic joyride on the previous FDNY-owned John J. Harvey vessel at round 2:30 a.m., cops and different sources mentioned.
The alleged boat bandit untied ropes tethering the decommissioned, now-privately-owned 130-foot vessel to Pier 66 at West twenty seventh Road in Chelsea and floated downstream, cops mentioned.
He drifted aimlessly for a few half-hour then obtained caught close to Pier 64 at West twenty fifth Road, in accordance with police.
The sketchy skipper then jumped ship — plunging into the 46-degree water and swimming to land earlier than leaping onto a 25-foot sailboat, cops and sources mentioned.
Hernandez tried to decrease the sails of the second boat, owned by the Hudson River Neighborhood Crusing College, however failed, in accordance with the sources.
He continued his weird odyssey by drifting for roughly for one more half-hour to Pier 51, close to Jane Road within the West Village, cops mentioned.
Somebody noticed him in on board and referred to as 911, police mentioned.
The NYPD’s Harbor Unit responded and boarded the boat, the place they discovered Hernandez mendacity down on the bottom, police mentioned.
He was busted round 3:40 a.m. and charged with two counts of grand larceny auto, cops mentioned.
The purple and white John J. Harvey fireboat was named for an FDNY firefighter who was killed throughout a ship hearth. It launched in Brooklyn in 1931 and is famed for returning to service following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist assaults.
Hernandez has no prior arrests and no historical past with the NYPD as an “emotionally disturbed individual,” authorities mentioned.
Sources mentioned he initially entered the US illegally via El Paso, Texas in 2022 and informed federal immigration authorities in Boston that he had household there.
He then allegedly skipped out on immigration court docket proceedings in Boston, the sources mentioned.
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