St. Croix, USVI – U.S. Attorney Gretchen C.F. Shappert announced that a St. Croix man, Aneudis Acevedo, age 33, appeared before Judge Wilma A. Lewis, in District Court, and was sentenced today on the charge of Resisting or Impeding an Officer of the United States.
Judge Lewis sentenced Acevedo to three years of probation, six months of home detention with location monitoring, a fine of $10,000, and a $25 special assessment.
According to court documents, in the late afternoon of January 10, 2021, shots were fired on the Buck Island Reef National Monument after a fight occurred on the beach. Immediately after the shots were fired, Acevedo fled the scene in his boat at a high rate of speed while carrying several passengers. He fled from a National Park Service boat and officer, disobeying multiple orders directing him to stop. At one point during the pursuit, the boats physically came into contact, but Acevedo continued to flee. Acevedo forced the National Park Service boat to abandon the pursuit after he travelled into shallow channels by a reef. The United States Coast Guard assisted and approximately two hours later took the defendant into custody on the south side of the island of St. Croix. However, at the time of apprehension, boat passengers were no longer on the boat.
The National Park Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the FBI investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel H. Huston prosecuted the case.
This case is part of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods Initiative. Project Safe Neighborhoods is a nationwide initiative that brings together federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and community leaders to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in a community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. For more information on the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods, please see: https://www.justice.gov/psn.
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