A fugitive who was found naked among mangroves near Darwin has claimed he merely got lost on his way to a Tones And I performance.
- READ MORE: The story behind Tones And I, the Australian busker topping the charts with ‘Dance Monkey’
9 News reports that the fugitive, Luke Voskerensky, was hiding out among the mangroves in early January when two fishermen, Cam Faust and Kevin Joiner, rescued him.
Voskerensky told the fishermen that he had been “surviving on snails”, suffering mosquito bites and that he lost his way trying to get to Tones And I’s New Year’s Eve concert at Darwin’s Waterfront.
“He had a nest made up in the tree, and he was only laying a metre above the water and there were crocs in the water so he has done well to survive,” Faust told Perth Now at the time.
“Once we’d seen how bad he was and how many cuts he had all over him and he was dehydrated and pretty weak…we thought we’d better get him in the boat,” Joiner said.
“We thought he just must have had a big night after New Year’s and got lost and done himself a mischief in the bush.”
In reality, Voskerensky was on the run from the police after pleading guilty for assaulting his girlfriend and had removed his electronic monitoring device. He had booked a flight from Darwin to Cairns using a pseudonym, which he didn’t make for obvious reasons.
“I was going to go visit him in hospital and my partner’s a paramedic saying he’s in hospital with handcuffs on – two cops babysitting him,” Faust said.
“So we were like, ‘oh maybe we’ll leave it’.”
Voskerensky’s defence lawyer, John Adams, argued for a suspended sentence in light of the “punishment” that he suffered during his “uncomfortable” time among the mangroves.
After Judge Greg Macdonald questioned Adams on whether “self-inflicted stupidity” could be taken into account when deciding Voskerensky’s sentence, Voskerensky said that the ordeal has taught him that he’s “got to do what [he’s] told”.
Voskerensky will be sentenced on Friday February 19. Tones And I has yet to comment on the debacle.