{"id":40762,"date":"2025-11-15T20:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T20:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/40762\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T20:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T20:17:09","slug":"new-jersey-residents-fed-up-with-ex-cons-beached-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/40762\/","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey residents fed up with ex-con\u2019s beached boat"},"content":{"rendered":"

He went from a shipwreck to a trainwreck.<\/p>\n

Residents of a tony Jersey Shore town are furious after the shipwrecked Florida boater they welcomed with open arms turned out to be an ex-con with a rap sheet longer than a bluefin tuna. <\/p>\n

Lawrence Kaehler, 51, was trying to sail solo from New York Harbor to Cocoa Beach, FL, but managed to make it only 48 miles. When rough weather caused him to lose control<\/a> of his front sail, he frantically attempted to course correct and dock in what he believed to be an inlet \u2014 but he ended up running aground on the beach in Sea Girt.<\/p>\n

Lawrence Kaehler crashed his boat in Sea Girt, N.J. Leonardo Munoz<\/p>\n

\u201cIt got really, really nasty, really fast. It probably was four to six-foot waves, and probably about 25-mile-an-hour, 30-mile-an-hour winds,\u201d said Kaehler, who owns a flooring business in Florida.<\/p>\n

At first, locals rushed to help the castaway.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI would hear people like genuinely concerned for my safety . . . And I\u2019d just pop my head up [out of his boat] and be like, \u2018No, I\u2019m okay,\u2019 \u201d he told The Post.<\/p>\n

Good Samaritans offered him food and even a bed. A local company dug a trench to help him get the boat, named the Alestorm, back out to sea.<\/p>\n

The boat has sat on the beach for the last seven weeks. Helayne Seidman<\/p>\n

\u201cWe almost had it two times,\u201d but more bad weather foiled the attempts, he said.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 21, the state police issued a citation ordering him to remove the boat or face a potential $1,000 per day fine. <\/p>\n

The tide of support began to turn as his boat languished \u2014 and revelations began to unfold.<\/p>\n

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Local internet sleuths soon discovered Kaehler\u2019s checkered past, and police sources and public records confirmed at least eight past felony convictions, including for cocaine possession<\/a>, dealing in stolen property and DUI.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat past bothers me. Who knows what he had on the boat?\u201d Sea Girt resident Matt Isabella said.<\/p>\n

Kaehler says he\u2019s willing to work with authorities toe resolve the situation. Leonardo Munoz<\/p>\n

Shocked local resident Charles Newman said, \u201cI can\u2019t believe the town didn\u2019t put it in a dumpster. I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s still intact on the beach.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kaehler said that he is trying to \u201cmove forward\u201d from his unsavory past. He admitted he served nine months in prison and was on probation from 2017 to 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019m a pretty decent dude, you know? I try to help people out and I don\u2019t harm anyone else, just myself\u2026 drugs are bad,\u201d Kaehler said.<\/p>\n

The town twice offered to help him remove the boat, which has languished in the sand for seven weeks, but he refused because the town insisted he hold it \u201charmless\u201d in case the vessel was damaged. Kaehler declined to share how much he paid for the Catalina, but said it was either an \u201983 or \u201985 model, which can sell online for $10,000-$25,000.<\/p>\n

He attended a virtual court hearing Wednesday, where he pleaded not guilty to abandonment of a vessel, and told the State Attorney General he would work with the borough to remove the boat.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Helayne Seidman <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He went from a shipwreck to a trainwreck. Residents of a tony Jersey Shore town are furious after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[18565,7317,57,1066,9,11,10,23598,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-40762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-boats","9":"tag-drugs","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-jersey","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-shipwrecks","16":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}