Almost 6 months ago, back in early May, we originally wrote about the man who was caught camping at Walt Disney World’s (abandoned) Discovery Island. The whole story was admittedly kind of weird and unusual. But it still might not have been such a big deal if not for the fact that WDW was closed at the time, due to the coronavirus pandemic. But there ya go.
Anyway, about a week later, we wrote that, after some sleuthing, we thought we had figured out why Discovery Island Guy (or DIG for short) had done his weird deed in the first place (and nope, it probably wasn’t what you thought and it certainly wasn’t what he had told the sheriffs!).
Fast forward four months, and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office released some nice bodycam footage from when the sheriffs were searching for DIG. It gave the first daytime footage of Discovery Island anyone has seen since it closed in the late 1990s. And WOW, has Disney let it go to pot!
We figured the tale was done by then. But nope, it turned out there was still one more chapter.
The guy was facing up to a year in jail. But his day in court finally arrived and he pleaded no contest to a trespassing charge under a plea agreement. He was fined $100, agreed to pay all court costs, and was banned from Walt Disney World for life.
Was the punishment just a slap on the wrist? Maybe. I don’t know his financial situation so the $100 and court costs may or may not have been a big deal. As for being trespassed for life? Well, nothing I researched about DIG suggested he was a Disney fan in any sense of the word; he was trying to get footage and clicks for his YouTube channel.
The thing is, even with all that publicity, all of his “Discovery Island” videos still only got a total of, as of this writing, less than 30k views. Frankly, that’s not a whole lot. So I doubt he’ll think it was even worth it.
H/T: Orlando Sentinel
Feature Photo (cropped): Rob Emms /geograph.org.uk
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
