Drunken Sailor's Mayday Call Brings Suspended Jail Time

Wearing a U.S. Navy uniform, Christopher Beach stood before a judge on Monday and pleaded guilty to a pair of charges stemming from his making a drunken Mayday distress call. Beach, 27, of 7 Kempf St., Kittery, Maine — an address at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard — pleaded guilty to a violation-level charge of criminal trespassing, admitting he gained entry behind locked iron gates protecting the docks at Harbor Place Condominiums. Beach also pleaded guilty to a class A misdemeanor count of criminal threatening, admitting he charged at Officer Adam Kozlowski and threatened to kick his buttocks. Police alleged Beach was thrown out of several bars before boarding someone else’s boat at 8:35 p.m. on Oct. 3, then made the bogus Mayday call, which brought out the Coast Guard and local police.Prosecutor Corey MacDonald told the court Beach has no prior criminal history, wrote a letter of apology to the city for his behavior and is “having some repercussions in his career,” including alcohol treatment through the Navy. Asked by Judge Sawako Gardner where he had his last drink, Beach told her it was at Legends Billiards & Tavern on Hanover Street. In exchange for his guilty plea to the criminal threatening charge, Beach was sentenced to six months in the Rockingham County House of Corrections and fined $500, with all of the jail sentence and half of the fine suspended pending a year of good behavior. For his plea to the criminal trespass charge, he was fined $500.