Distinguished American playwright and actor, Jeremy O. Harris, recognized for his Tony-nominated “Slave Play” and his function within the Netflix collection “Emily in Paris,” was arrested in Japan on suspicion of smuggling the psychedelic drug ecstasy, officers mentioned Saturday.
Officers at Naha Airport on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa arrested Harris on Nov. 16 for an alleged violation of customs regulation for having 0.78 grams, or 0.0275 ounces, of the crystalized drug, often known as MDMA, in a container in a tote bag he was carrying, in accordance with Okinawa Regional Customs spokesperson Tatsunori Fukuda.
Harris, 36, had left London’s Heathrow Airport two days earlier and transited in Taiwan’s Taoyuan Worldwide Airport earlier than arriving in Naha for sightseeing, Fukuda mentioned. Okinawa is a well-liked resort vacation spot with gentle climate all year long.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP 
Fukuda mentioned Harris was arrested on the spot and brought into custody by the Tomishiro police, which filed a legal grievance to the Naha District Prosecutors’ Workplace on Thursday for additional investigation and attainable indictment. CBS Information has reached out to the Tomishiro police for extra remark.
Japanese authorities didn’t discover every other medicine in his baggage and imagine the MDMA was for his private use. They’re nonetheless investigating, Fukuda mentioned, whereas including that whether or not Harris made any touch upon the case couldn’t be launched.
There was no quick remark from Harris’ representatives. Harris has not publicly commented on his arrest.
CBS Information reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Japan for extra remark.
Japanese legal procedures enable investigators to maintain a suspect in custody for as much as 23 days earlier than indictment, and pretrial detention may be extended if the accused workout routines their proper of silence or denies the costs, a apply broadly criticized as “hostage justice.”
These convicted of drug smuggling in Japan can face a multiyear jail time period.
Harris burst onto the humanities scene with “Slave Play,” written whereas he was nonetheless a graduate scholar on the Yale College of Drama. It premiered off-Broadway in 2018, inciting controversy and even a petition to close down the manufacturing with its provocative mixture of race, class and sexual taboos. It moved to Broadway the next yr, incomes a Tony nomination for greatest play, however didn’t win an award.
The play returned for a brief run on Broadway in December 2021.
“There have not been sufficient probabilities for us to replicate who we’re to the world and to ourselves and to ponder what that reflection means, and so that is what ‘Slave Play’ will get to do for individuals,” Harris advised CBS New York in 2021.
Along with small performing roles, he is cameoed as himself on a rebooted “Gossip Woman” and served as a co-producer on a number of episodes of HBO’s hit collection “Euphoria.”
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