How Paul and Christy Akeo returned home to Michigan
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — Shortly before midnight on Thursday, April 3, Paul and Christy Akeo of Spring Arbor returned to Michigan after spending weeks in a maximum-security prison in Mexico, and when it happened.
The Akeos spoke to the media late Thursday night about their experiences, and U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte), who flew to Mexico personally to advocate for their release, sat down with 6 News Friday to provide some insight into what happened behind the scenes.
The Akeo parents were initially arrested on March 4 at a Cancún airport, accused of defrauding resort chain out of more than $116,000 by cancelling membership charges on a credit card. The family and their lawyer disputes these allegations, saying the the timeshare contract they had with the Akeos and were actually at fault in the conflict.
Paul told 6 News what happened to them after they were arrested, saying days went by before they could talk to their family or even each other.
'We were whisked off to another facility, and then we were sent directly to prison. We weren't able to talk to anybody, didn't have any contact with lawyers, didn't have our phones, so we were just sitting there,' said Paul.
The language barrier also made the couple's stay in prison more difficult, with Lemke things are not being translated for them and that various 'odd situations' complicated their experiences.
The Akeo children previously told 6 News that their parents' stay in prison was impacting their health—especially Christy's, whose allergies led her to avoid most meals.
'The problem is there's been several times where they've served her food that she's allergic to or cannot eat because of that,' the Akeo's son, Michael Lemke, 'She's been having this rash that keeps breaking out on her just after some food, so she's only able to eat certain things.'
In a , the Akeos' daughter Lindsey Hull, began asking for help on March 24. That same day, Barrett of the Akeos' situation and began working to get them released. But for him, everything really began moving on Tuesday.
'There wasn't a feeling of urgency involved,' says Barrett. 'And so on Tuesday afternoon, I got a briefing from the State Department back here in the United States, in my office in Washington, D.C.'
He expressed his dissatisfaction with the way the Akeos' situation was being handled.
'I felt like this had not progressed in the way we needed. And so, I made the decision to fly down as quickly as I could to just bring about a resolution to this,' says Barrett. 'We went directly to the prison, met with Paul and Christy at the prison immediately upon our arrival.'
He spoke with the Akeos for an hour and called the conditions they were facing in the prison 'horrific,' with 'rubbled walls, overcrowded cells, toilets that don't flush, and disgusting food.' He says that from there, he met with the president of the Quintana Roo Supreme Court and others to negotiate their release.
MORE: Where in Mexico are the Spring Arbor parents being held?
'From there, we left the prison and went and met with the president of the Supreme Court of Mexico, begin that process of negotiating some of the court proceedings side of it,' says Barrett. 'That can be very bureaucratic in Mexico.'
6 News previously spoke with Lemke, who that his parents could have been held for more than six months, as that was how long a judge gave Palace Elite to gather evidence. However, Barrett says it would have been longer than that.
'You might you know, their trial was not supposed to be for about a year from now,' Barrett told 6 News.
The congressman says the negotiations for the Akeos' release were tricky, involving both legal talks and separate discussions with the company. However, after he met with Mexican officials, they arranged a hearing for Thursday, where the charges against Paul and Christy were dropped.
'So for us to be able to get them into a courtroom meant that we had to move a lot of channels to be able to do that,' says Barrett. 'And then in the background, on a parallel track, we had to negotiate with the company around the terms of what we could agree to, to ultimately get them released and how that was going to work.'
As a result, the Akeos are no longer facing any charges in Mexico—but they still have obligations to take care of regarding the conditions of their release.
Barrett says the Akeos and the company made a public statement where neither of them assigned blame or responsibility to the other and that both parties will be donating money equalling the amount of the disputed charges—around $116,000—to a charity that operates a Mexican orphanage.
'So, the two parties are investing the money into that charitable nonprofit, so a good resolution. Everyone seems to be happy, and they're home safe, and that's ultimately what I was trying to bring about with the parties,' says Barrett.
The congressman gave 6 News an idea of his thought process throughout the dispute.
'I looked at it from the standpoint of, number one, if you have a financial contract dispute in the United States, you handle that through civil litigation,' Barrett told 6 News. 'You don't have a party in the desperate conditions that they were in down in Mexico as leverage for a settlement in a dispute of that kind. '
He says that in the end, he wasn't focused on who was at fault.
'For me, it wasn't so much 'Who's responsible for which part of this?' and 'Who's to blame for this?' and the other thing, I wasn't really interested in negotiating that part of it,' said Barrett. 'I was interested in what can we do that will expedite their return, their safe release, and return home as quickly as possible.'
6 News was at the Capital Region International Airport late Thursday night when the parents .
'I never thought we would be coming home for months,' Christy said. 'We are so happy that it's over.'
The couple expressed their gratitude toward all the people who made their return home possible.
'I don't even know how we're gonna repay or thank people. There's so many people that have just supported us, but we still don't know all of them. We've just been glimpsing,' said Christy. 'I mean, how do you repay or thank people?'
The Akeo parents were especially thankful for the work their children put into getting them home.
'Our kids, I can't say how proud I am for what our kids have done, the people they contacted, the using social media to let people be aware of what's going on, because we didn't know what we were going to do,' said Christy. 'How do you repay your kids for doing what they did?'
Paul echoed Christy's words, telling all the people who watched their story unfold to 'be thankful for what America has given us. Just be thankful for the little things.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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