US Veterans Jailed in Dubai After Alleged Drugging Incident

Two Ohio broth­ers — includ­ing an Air Force vet­er­an turned influ­encer — who claim they were “drugged” dur­ing a yacht par­ty in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates were sen­tenced to jail for alco­hol con­sump­tion, a law that is strict­ly enforced in the Mid­dle East­ern nation.

DruggedAndJailed

Joseph and Joshua Lopez will each serve a month in prison for the drink­ing alco­hol charge they received while on a “touris­tic vis­it to the Emi­rates” in June, accord­ing to Detained in Dubai, an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing peo­ple fac­ing legal issues in the UAE.

TargetedByScammers

The two broth­ers were enjoy­ing a night out on June 2 when they were brought to two sep­a­rate “after­par­ties” and forced to pay mas­sive bills before a woman served them a drink they claimed was drugged.

“It is clear they were tar­get­ed by scam­mers who were want­i­ng to rob them,” Detained in Dubai CEO Rad­ha Stir­ling wrote on its website.

AbductedByPolice

Both Lopez and Stir­ling claim the broth­ers thought they were being abduct­ed on for­eign soil but were instead brought to the Al Bar­sha police sta­tion, where they remained from June 3 to June 12.

VeteranAdvocate

“Joseph Lopez is an Air Force vet­er­an who helps peo­ple in dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions through his men­tal health advo­ca­cy,” Stir­ling said. “He and his broth­er deserve every effort from the US gov­ern­ment to bring him home.”

The broth­ers will fight the dam­ag­ing gov­ern­ment prop­er­ty and assault­ing an offi­cer charges in court on Aug. 20, accord­ing to Stir­ling’s Detained in Dubai post.