A Florida man named Joseph Malinowski, nicknamed "Lieutenant Dan," who went viral for refusing to leave his small home boat ahead of Hurricane Helena and Milton, was arrested Friday, October 18, 2024. Malinowski was taken into custody over trespassing in a city park despite a warning.
According to Fox News Digital, police described Malinowski as a “transient” individual, whose occupation was listed as “TikTok Star” on court documents. The Tampa Police said a day before his arrest, they met with Malinowski at Bayshore Linear Park and Dock over concerns he was trespassing in the park.
Police said Malinowski, living on an unregistered vessel, did not have a sanitation device to dispose the sewage and failed to submit a record of proper waste disposal, creating a public health hazard. Police warned Joseph Malinowski to leave the park on Thursday.
However, Malinowski, who failed to comply with the warning, was taken into custody on Friday and charged with two outstanding warrants for failure to appear in court and one misdemeanor charge of trespassing in a city park. Malinowski remains behind bars without a possibility of parole. Malinowski’s boat was also impounded.
Joseph Malinowski was sentenced to one year in prison for assaulting a police officer
Shortly after Jospeh Malinowski went viral for riding out two hurricanes back to back on his boat, his past criminal history emerged online. The Orlando Sentinel reported Malinowski was released from jail in April 2022 after serving one year in prison for “punching a police officer in the nose.” Last year, Joseph Malinowski was accused of setting a park bench on fire before splashing gasoline on a woman, who feared for her life.
Joseph Malinowski is an amputee who rose to internet fame after Terrence Concannon, a senior at the University of Tampa, documented his determination to ride out Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton on his boat. Malinowski told NBC News, he lost his leg after being hit by a car when he was 16 years old.
Concannon, who first posted Joseph Malinowski on his TikTok on September 25 before Hurricane Helena stormed the state, nicknamed him “Lieutenant Dan,” a character from “Forrest Gump,” who was also an amputee whose boat survived a hurricane.
Concannon also began a GoFundMe campaign to purchase a new boat for Malinowski. The fundraiser has raised over $44,000. It is unclear if the fundraiser promise was met since Malinowski was living in a battered vessel at the time of his arrest.
Concannon, who posts on TikTok under the name Tampa Terrence, posted about Malinowski many times during the hurricanes. His most-viewed video racked up 30 million views.
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Earlier this month, Malinowski appeared alongside popular livestreamer, Adin Ross, who said he would buy Malinowski a new boat worth between $50,000 and $100,000. Ross also promised Joseph Malinowski a deal with the streaming platform Kick (via Forbes.)
Malinowski told NBC he had been homeless for ten years and only recently arrived in Florida.
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