One of several Americans recently charged with having ammunition in Turks and Caicos is expected to go home after a court issued a suspended sentence and fined him $2,000.
Ryan Tyler Watson of Oklahoma pleaded guilty last month to possessing four rounds of ammunition, a spokesperson for the government of Turks and Caicos said. He had been released on bail and ordered to stay on the islands while awaiting this sentence.
On Friday, Watson received a 13-week suspended sentence and a $2,000 fine – $500 per bullet, a spokesperson for the Turks and Caicos Islands Supreme Court told CNN on Friday.
Watson will not need to serve the 13-week sentence “as long as he doesn’t commit any crimes and keeps the peace in the TCI within 9 months,” the court spokesperson said. Watson “is now allowed to leave … as he’s now cleared with the justice in the TCI.”
Watson is expected to return to Oklahoma City by Friday night, according to Jonathan Franks, a spokesperson for Bring Our Families Home.
“We will make payment shortly, depart TCI and anticipate being home in OKC tonight,” Franks posted on X from the courthouse.
Watson was visiting Turks and Caicos with his wife in April to celebrate several friends’ 40th birthdays. But bringing firearms or ammunition into Turks and Caicos without prior permission from police is “strictly forbidden.”
The British Overseas Territory doesn’t manufacture guns or ammunition, yet the number of firearms making their way to the islands has increased, Turks and Caicos Premier C. Washington Misick said in May. By contrast, the United States has more guns than people.
“In the Turks and Caicos Islands, the law stands firm and applies to everyone equally, without exception,” Misick said in a statement last month.
