The Oklahoma man who was facing up to 14 years in a Turks and Caicos prison after four rounds of hunting ammunition were found in his luggage is coming home to the United States.
Ryan Watson, 40, said that he had been subjected to “terrifying interrogation” and exorbitant living fees after Turks and Caicos authorities discovered four rounds of hunting ammo in his suitcase.
Security at the Howard Hamilton International Airport found four rounds of ammo “unknowingly left in a duffel bag from a deer hunting trip” on April 12.
At his sentencing hearing this week, Watson received a suspended 13-week jail sentence and a fine of $2,000, according to a family spokesman.
After the sentencing, the judge warned American travelers to double-check their bags and asked the Transportation Safety Administration to screen outgoing travelers.
Watson and his wife Valerie traveled to Turks and Caicos in early April to celebrate friends’ 40th birthdays and were able to get through security with the ammo at their local Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma.
“TSA is conducting a review at OKC, which was the originating airport,” the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement at the time.
The couple was both charged with possession of ammunition, an offense that carries a minimum of 12 years in prison in Turks & Caicos.
“When I heard that, I immediately was terrified because I was like, we can’t both be in prison for 12 years. We have kids at home. And this is such an innocent mistake that we didn’t even know we weren’t – we didn’t even know it was there. So yeah, my immediate thought was our kids and them being, you know, parentless for, for that long,” Valerie said.
