Block Island residents Perry Phillips and Benjamin Foster entered into a settlement agreement on Monday to pay $10,000 fortheir antics at sea last summer, a prank that went horribly wrong and resulted in a cost of $103,948 to the U.S. Coast Guard.According to the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Providence, Rhode Island, on the night of June 6, 2020, the defendantsborrowed a flare gun and flares from a friend and set off in a skiff from Payne’s Dock, proceeding to Breezy Point.
Once there, at approximately 9:30 p.m., the defendants “proceeded to knowingly, purposefully, and/or intentionally discharge approximately three flares into the air using the flare gun, in a manner that caused the flares to be visible at a distance.”
The flares were indeed visible from the island, as “one or more citizens contacted the harbormaster to report the flares.” Naturally, the harbormaster, along with an officer of the New Shoreham Police Department sprang into action. The complaint states: “As a matter of commonly accepted maritime custom and practice, the discharge of flares of the color and type used by defendants, and in the manner discharged by the defendants, are understood to convey that a vessel
