mysql 5 and localized dates

Problems with persisting timestamps in Mysql 5 via JDBC:

3.0.9
Cannot convert value '2004-08-16 12:00:00' from column 4(2004-08-16 12:00:00 ) to TIMESTAMP.

3.1.11
java.sql.SQLException: Invalid value for getInt() - '^A' in column 7

3.2.0 alpha
Caused by: java.sql.SQLException: Unknown type '16 in column 6 of 21 in binary-encoded result set.

with the following code:

st.setTimestamp(index, timestamp,gmtCal); 

where st is a PreparedStatement and the gmtCal is a Calendar instance set at GMT.

Also, the URL connection string was:
jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/unity?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf8&useTimezone=true&serverTimezone=MST7MDT