THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 25, 1994 TAG: 9408250597
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Morris Jones thought he was following an age-old law of the sea when he went to the rescue of a boat in distress off Willoughby Spit this summer.
But the weekend mariner soon learned that the Coast Guard suspected his act violated the law of the land and had placed the Virginia Beach man under surveillance for allegedly smuggling illegal aliens into the country.
Jones, 57, was cleared of wrongdoing in the episode Wednesday, several weeks after he said he went fishing aboard his 21-foot sailboat and ``saw this man waving'' from a skiff adrift near the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.
``I went over there, and it was a young man, an old man and a kid about 2 years old,'' he said. ``They had motor trouble, and they asked could I tow them in.''
He did, using his boat's 8-horsepower motor to haul the skiff toward a public boat ramp on Willoughby Spit's south shore. He cut the skiff loose when the two boats reached shallow water.
``I left them,'' he said. ``I went on my way.''
The seafaring saga was weeks past when, early Saturday morning, police pulled Jones over in Norfolk's West Ghent neighbor hood as he drove to work. Jones figured he was about to be popped for driving without a license, a charge he knew he'd earned - he lost the privilege to drive years ago.
Within minutes, however, he realized something else was on the officers' minds. Four squad cars soon clogged the street. ``They told me to get out of my vehicle, spread my legs open; they patted me down,'' he said. ``They told me they'd been watching me for quite a while.''
One of the officers, Jones said, identified himself as a Coast Guard reservist and told him he was ``in big trouble'' and could soon be ``making big rocks small.''
``I said, `What do you mean?' And he said: `In the penitentiary.' ''
The police, Jones said, told him they had a report that he had been paid $300 to tow a boat of Asians ashore.
The Coast Guard is vigilant to such activity. The service says smugglers have targeted Hampton Roads as a drop-off point for illegal immigrants, and in June cutters snared a ship off the coast with more than 100 Chinese nationals aboard, all of them allegedly bound for a Norfolk dock.
Still, Jones was flabbergasted that he was under suspicion. ``I only have a 21-foot boat with an 8-horsepower motor,'' he said. ``I can only tow so many people.''
Police could not produce the Asians he'd supposedly smuggled, nor name their source, Jones said. When he provided details of the rescue, they told him they wanted him to take a lie-detector test.
But by Wednesday, the Coast Guard had dropped the matter. ``Mr. Jones was interviewed,'' spokeswoman Lt. Nona Smith said. ``However, no allegations were made, he has not been charged, and he is no longer a suspect.
``The door has been closed on any of those questions about him.''
That didn't sit right with Jones, who said the police did allege he was a lawbreaker. ``They did me like I'd done murdered somebody,'' he said.
It doesn't sit right with Jones' attorney, either. ``If anybody in the government seriously thinks that an open boat with a 2-year-old boy in it and five gallons of gas can travel around the world from Asia to Willoughby Spit,'' Troy Spencer said, ``then I don't want a legal fee. I want the movie rights.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff color photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
Morris Jones on Wednesday was cleared of wrongdoing in the rescue
off Willoughby Spit.
KEYWORDS: U.S. COAST GUARD
by CNB