A Michigan man who was upset that he was left to watch the pets when his girlfriend went on a cruise to the Caribbean with her family was sentenced Monday to eight months in prison for making a false bomb threat, federal prosecutors said.
An investigation began after the man, Joshua Darrell Lowe, who was 19 at the time of his arrest, of Bailey, Mich., sent an email to Carnival Cruise Line in January 2024, that read, “Hey, I think someone might have a bomb on your Sunrise cruise ship,” according to court records.
The threat caused the vessel, which had departed from Miami, to be escorted by Jamaican maritime authorities and diverted to a port in their country.
Mr. Lowe was sentenced during an appearance in federal court in Kalamazoo, according to filings in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. He had been indicted in September on one charge of making a bomb threat, prosecutors said.
“Although the defendant may not have intended all the harm that resulted from his action, the consequences of his email were serious,” Nils R. Kessler, an assistant attorney with the Western District, wrote in the legal complaint filed in court. “The hoax resulted in substantial disruption, including inconvenience to the passengers and potential lost revenue to the cruise line.”
The ship was fully booked and staffed when the authorities had to conduct a search, which included checking more than 1,100 cabins, prosecutors said. The guest capacity for the Sunrise is 2,984, according to the Carnival Cruise Line’s website.
“The ship was escorted into its next port of call by the Jamaican Marine Police,” Mr. Kessler wrote in court filings.
Carnival Cruise investigators and F.B.I. agents traced the email address to Mr. Lowe, who was living with his girlfriend’s family, prosecutors said.
Mr. Lowe confessed to investigators that he had sent the message because “he was upset that the family went on the cruise, while leaving him behind to care for their pets.”
Mr. Lowe apologized for his actions in a letter to Judge Paul L. Maloney of the Western District. “This is all my fault and take full responsibility, it should never have happened,” he wrote.
Mr. Lowe pleaded guilty to one count of false information and hoaxes, which could have carried a penalty of up to five years in prison, prosecutors said. Following his eight-month prison sentence, he will be under supervised release for two years, according to court records.
His public defender and Carnival did not immediately respond on Wednesday to requests for comment about the sentencing.
Johnny Diaz is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news from Miami.
The post Man Who Sent Bomb Threat to a Cruise His Girlfriend Was On Is Sentenced appeared first on New York Times.
