Wife of UBS banker: 'Death sentence' if he is thrown back in Anguilla jail
The wife of a UBS banker charged with manslaughter during a family vacation in Anguilla said it would be "the equivalent of a death sentence" if he ended up back in jail in the Caribbean, during an interview with The New York Post.
Scott Hapgood, 44, of Darien, Connecticut, is charged in the death of hotel worker, Kenny Mitchel, 27, in April.
Scott Hapgood was wounded during an altercation with Kenny Mitchel.
"[My husband] knows he did nothing wrong. He's not responsible for Mitchel's death, but to me, I don't know if that is enough to keep him safe. If he were to be remanded to prison, I think it would be the equivalent of a death sentence," Kallie Hapgood told The New York Post.
Hapgood and his family have said all along that Mitchel, a stranger to them, appeared at the door of their luxury, five-star Malliouhana hotel room on April 13 and tried to rob them at knifepoint, sparking a brawl between Hapgood and Mitchel — all in the presence of his frightened two young daughters. At the end of the fight, Mitchel was dead and Hapgood was badly injured. Hapgood and his family have called what happened to them while they were on vacation in the Carribean a "chilling nightmare" and "a literal fight to survive."
"We are in lock step together aside from the fact he keeps wanting to return, and I don't want him to. ... I have begged him from day one not to go back there, and I still don't want him to go back there, but he needs to make his own decisions, and he feels strongly about clearing his name," Kallie Hapgood said.
The Hapgoods are using roughly $250,000 they received through GoFundMe to pay for Scott Hapgood's travel to and from Anguilla, private security and therapy for himself and his daughters, according to The New York Post. GoFundMe pulled the page after six days, possibly for violating its terms of service giving the site discretion over fundraisers "in support of, or for the legal defense of alleged crimes associated with ... violence."
The decision followed pressure from Mitchel's advocates, The Darien Times reported.
A revised autopsy report written on Sept. 3, says that Mitchel had "acute cocaine toxicity [that] could have been a potentially independent cause of death in the known circumstance."
The report is the result of newly released toxicology tests, which indicate that Mitchel also had a blood alcohol level of 0.18, way above the legal limit in the U.S., and marijuana in his system as well.
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FOX Business' Christian de La Chapelle contributed to this report.