He’s free.
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One, two … one, two, three: Release him. Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris was released from custody in Japan on December 8 following his arrest last month on suspicion of drug smuggling, Japanese authorities confirmed to the New York Times. While a spokesperson for the Tomishiro Police Station in Tomigusuku, a city in Okinawa, declined to comment, a representative for Harris said that he was not charged with any crimes. But that doesn’t mean the Slave Play writer is headed home just yet — according to his rep, Harris is staying in Japan to write and do research for an upcoming project. Will this experience end up becoming fodder for his next script? Does Emily in Paris need to worry about competing with Jeremy in Japan? Guess we’ll find out when he gets back.
Customs officials previously alleged that they had found 780 milligrams of ecstasy in Harris’s carry-on bag on November 16 after he flew into Okinawa. His case was referred to prosecutors in Okinawa’s capital last week, though they did not indicate whether charges were filed at the time. If Harris had been convicted of violating the country’s notoriously strict Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act, he could have faced up to seven years in prison. Now that he’s out, he knows who’d reach out to him in a moment of crisis and who’d tweet shade about his potential incarceration.
