A Michigan couple who was being held “hostage” in a Mexican prison for nearly a month was released on Thursday and are heading home.
Navy veteran Paul Akeo and his wife Christy were released after 30 days in custody for allegedly defrauding hospitality company Palace Resorts.
“Paul and Christy Akeo are coming home. Mission accomplished,” Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mi.) wrote in a post to X.
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The couple, both 60, was arrested on March 4 after arriving in Cancun for a vacation where their passports were flagged.
The arrests were seen as a form of retaliation against the couple for challenging charges made on their credit card by a resort during a stay in 2021.
“Make no mistake, what they’re doing is they are holding two Americans hostage because they want them to pay them money,” family lawyer John Manly told CBS last month.
The couple had a timeshare membership with the vacation firm, The Palace Company, and disputed 13 charges totaling $117,000 from Palace Resorts on their American Express card.
They were being held inside a maximum security prison without bond.
Conditions inside the prison were described as “horrific” with crumbling walls, broken sewage lines, overcrowded cells and “disgusting food,” according to Barrett.
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“This has left them scared, frustrated, and struggling to find hope,” the freshman congressman said in an earlier post shared a day before the couple’s release.
Barrett had flown down to the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, meeting with the couple and officials to negotiate their release.
The couple, along with Barrett, were recorded boarding a plane heading back to The Wolverine State.
They landed in Lansing, Mich. just after 12:30 Friday morning, CBS Detroit reported.
“There’s so many people who have supported us,” she said after her return to the US. “I don’t even know how we’re going to repay or thank people.”
During their imprisonment, Paul and Christy were denied medical attention, communication services and were “publicly defamed” by Mexican news organizations, Christy’s daughter Lindsey Hull wrote on Facebook.
Christy Akeo lost 25 pounds because she was being served food officials knew she was allergic to, her daughter claimed.
Hull had created a Facebook group dedicated to helping get her mom and stepfather released, calling out the federal government for their “lack of action.”
“Paul is a US Navy Chief Petty Officer and served our country for 21 years. The lack of action from our own government officials to help an innocent veteran who proudly served our country is UNACCEPTABLE,” she said.
The Palace Company accused the Akeos of “publicly encouraging” other people to “defraud” the company.
“Paul and Christy Akeo fraudulently disputed legitimate credit card charges and publicly encouraged others to do the same,” a spokesperson for the Palace Company told ABC News.
Prosecutors also accused Christy of spreading the word of the supposed fraud to Facebook, teaching how to “commit the fraud against the hotel chain.”
A judge ordered them to a “justified preventive detention” for half a year while the proceedings lasted.
Charges against the couple had been dropped, the Akeos said, according to CBS Detroit.
