Gloucester police and Coast Guard personnel from Station Gloucester teamed up Saturday night to arrest a 60-year-old Lynnfield man and charge him with boating under the influence of alcohol — for the seventh time.
Gloucester officers arrested Robert Paul Marley II, of 18 Lakeview Drive in Lynnfield, after the Coast Guard initially stopped and boarded Marley's center-console recreational boat on the Annisquam River, near the Blynman Bridge, because the vessel lacked working running lights.
Marley was arraigned Monday at Gloucester District Court on the charges of boating under the influence of alcohol and disorderly conduct. He is being held in Middleton Jail until a dangerousness hearing on June 17.
The incident unfolded some time after 9 p.m. Saturday when Coast Guard personnel on the station's 29-foot boat encountered Marley's boat and stopped it because its lack of running lights made it a hazard to its passengers and other vessels on the water.
Once on board Marley's boat, the Coast Guard personnel quickly determined that Marley appeared highly intoxicated and was somewhat abusive, according to Chief Warrant Officer Kevin T. Morgan, the station commander who was part of the boarding party.
"It was pretty apparent he was not operating on full faculties," Morgan said Monday. "We didn't have to use force or anything. But he was very, very verbal with a creative use of the English language. I'll just say that."
The Coast Guard boat escorted Marley's boat — with a passenger at the wheel — to the fuel dock at Cape Ann's Marina & Resort, where it was met by Gloucester police officers at around 9:50 p.m.
"I spoke with Marley, noticed his eyes were very bloodshot and glassy," Patrolman Kevin Mackey wrote in his report. "He was very unsteady on his feet. He was extremely argumentative and aggressive toward Officer (Andrew) Knickle and the Coast Guard officers."
Mackey said he assumed responsibility for conducting the field sobriety tests.
"I asked Marley to walk up the wooden gangway to the paved parking lot area," Mackey wrote in his narrative. "I noticed that he had difficulty walking and I reached out to catch him when he nearly fell down. I asked Marley if he had any problems with either his eyes or legs. He stated he had an issue with his eyes because they were scratched and he could only see shadows."
Marley also told Mackey that a previous back surgery left him with difficulty walking — even showing the officer the surgical scar on his spine.
"He demanded several times that I contact the state police," Mackey wrote. "I detected a strong odor of liquor coming from his person. His speech was slurred as he spoke and yelled."
Mackey requested Marley recite the alphabet from letter D through Q without singing it.
"He interrupted me and said he could not recite the alphabet backwards," Mackey stated in the report. "I repeated my request again."
Marley, according to the report, started at letter A and went all the way through Z, "singing it at times."
Mackey said Marley was given a breath alcohol test and registered a .142 — significantly higher than state's maximum blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent.
Officers also discovered that Marley's Massachusetts driver's license had been revoked.
Marley was arrested on charges of boating under the influence of alcohol, seventh offense, and disorderly conduct. He was transported to the police station.
"Upon arrival, Marley became threatening towards us and demanded that we shoot him and he would shoot us," Mackey wrote. "He said he would call his lawyer and the district attorney's office and sue all of us."
Mackey said Marley remained belligerent throughout the booking process, referring to the Coast Guard as "Nazis" and disrupting his fingerprinting enough to force officers to place him in a cell.
Morgan said he'd never encountered a boater who had been charged seven times with boating under the influence of alcohol.
"I guess the big talking point is that operating a small boat under the influence can have the exact same consequences as operating a motor vehicle," Morgan said. "The ocean is a very unforgiving place. And behavior like that just makes it more dangerous for everyone."
Contact Sean Horgan at 978-675-2714, or shorgan@gloucestertimes.com. Follow him on Twitter at @SeanGDT.
