We, Mark Santos and Marvin Terry Jr., would like to deeply express our apology for the wrong we have done. We know that there is really no excuse for what we did but we would like to try to explain our actions.

The initial taking of Charlie the Tuna was a few weeks ago and was meant to be a prank. We had no intentions of harming the monument or damaging it in any way. We don’t want you to think that we were trying to show any disrespect to Charleston, the fishermen, or any of the community members. We just thought it would be funny to see people wonder where he went.

We had planned to wait a little while and then leave Charlie in a random place in town where he could be returned unharmed. A few days after we took Charlie I lost my vehicle and we had lost our way to transport Charlie from where he was hidden. We were informed that someone had found out where we had hidden Charlie and we kind of panicked. We tried to load him into a friend’s truck but he wouldn’t fit. So that was when, in a last-minute panic, we decided to chop him up so we could move him. This was not pre-planned.

That is when the local law enforcement walked up on us and we were arrested. We realize now that our actions did not reflect what responsible adults should have done, which we would generally consider ourselves to be. We are good kids. We both hold down full-time jobs and have never been in trouble before, and are just trying to take on life one obstacle at a time. I would just hope that even though you have only seen us through this horrible action that you not look down at us as criminals but as just a couple of kids who got caught up in a prank a little over our heads.

Once again we would like to apologize and would like to help out in any way that we can with the process of rebuilding a new statue or whatever is necessary. We are sorry for the inconveniences we have caused all around.