Oklahoma Man Avoids Prison After Airport Ammo Discovery in Turks and Caicos

A U.S. tourist from Oklahoma who spent months detained in the Caribbean territory will pay a penalty and fly home after a judge ruled his case involved extraordinary mitigating factors.

Oklahoma Man Avoids Prison After Airport Ammo Discovery in Turks and Caicos

A judge in the Turks and Caicos Islands has ruled that an American holidaymaker will not serve time behind bars after four bullets were detected in his hand luggage, instead ordering him to pay a monetary penalty and return to the United States.

Ryan Watson, a medical device salesman and parent of two children based in Oklahoma, was stopped at Howard Hamilton International Airport on April 12 as he was leaving following a group trip celebrating friends' milestone birthdays. Airport security found four rounds of hunting ammunition inside his carry-on. Watson insisted he had forgotten they were there.

During Friday's hearing, the magistrate imposed a $2,000 penalty — calculating $500 per round — and determined that extraordinary mitigating factors justified departing from the territory's standard mandatory minimum of 12 years imprisonment for such offenses. Watson was also placed under a suspended threat of roughly 13 weeks incarceration should he break any law in the islands during the following nine months.

He was anticipated to complete payment that same afternoon and board a flight to rejoin his family. His spouse had remained in the territory throughout the months-long proceedings after he was freed on $15,000 bail.

The matter attracted considerable notice because multiple U.S. visitors have recently faced prosecution under the jurisdiction's severe firearms statutes after accidentally packing ammunition. In preceding weeks, courts handed Tyler Wenrich a time-served disposition plus $9,000 in penalties, while Bryan Hagerich received a 52-week suspended custodial term and a $6,700 fine. Magistrates similarly identified extraordinary mitigating factors in both of those decisions.

Legislators recently modified the firearms ordinance to explicitly grant the judiciary expansive flexibility to issue fines alone, imprisonment alone, or combined sanctions when such factors exist. Prosecutors contended this amendment should not govern Watson's situation since his conduct predated the legislative change.

Watson's counsel stressed that his client acknowledged wrongdoing and underscored how the lengthy detention disrupted his employment and separated him from his young children.

Source: ABC7 Bay Area

Source: Google News TC — Crime