Man who camped on private Disney resort island fined $100

A view of Cinderella Castle from Seven Seas Lagoon in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida. Photo / AP

An Alabama man arrested for camping out for days on a shuttered Disney World island has been fined $100 and banned from the Florida theme park for life.

Richard McGuire, 42, pleaded no contest to a trespassing charge under a plea agreement last week in Orange County, Florida, The Orlando Sentinel reported.

He faced up to a year in jail.

Orange County Sheriff's deputies found McGuire on Disney's abandoned Discovery Island in late April. He said he had planned to camp there for a week, according to an arrest report.

The man, originally from Mobile, Alabama, said he did not hear numerous deputies searching the private island for him on foot, by boat and by air because he was asleep in a building.

He told the deputy he did not know it was a restricted area, despite there being numerous "no trespassing" signs.

"Richard stated that he was unaware of that and that it looked like a tropical paradise," according to the arrest report.

Previously called Treasure Island, Discovery Island had been the site of a zoological park before the island was closed to the public in 1999.

Mobilian Richard McGuire took a boat to the long-abandoned Discovery Island attraction at Disney World, which *apparently* you're not supposed to do.

McGuire said he didn't know he was trespassing and that the isand "looked like a tropical paradise." https://t.co/SomvGxfAnY

— Reckon (@reckonsouth) October 7, 2020

- AP