A man in Maryland has been sentenced to one year in prison for violating the state's COVID-19 restrictions by hosting two parties.
Shawn Marshall Myers, 42, was arrested in March, after throwing two separate parties with over 50 people. When Police told Myers to shut down his second party, which was held less than a week after his first, he refused and argued with officers: “Officers tried to reason with Myers and obtain his cooperation to no avail. Myers was then apprehended,” Tony Covington, state’s attorney for Charles County, said in a press release.
"Large gatherings were strictly prohibited under the orders. Myers had approximately fifty people in attendance at his residence," the press release says.
“These decisions were made for the public good, for people’s safety,” Covington told NBC. “We’ve got 200,000 people dead because of the attitudes that Mr. Myers demonstrated that particular day.”
“It’s not like the police just swooped in there and said you’re going to jail. They gave him a warning. He had at least 50 people the first day and then two, three days later, he’s doing the same thing," he continued.
Myers will serve one year in prison for two counts of failure to comply with an emergency order, pay a $5,000 fine, and remain under probation for three additional years.
[Via]