American dad Ryan Watson, 40, is facing 12 years in prison in Turks and Caicos after he was found to be carrying four rounds of hunting ammunition through the airport.“It was an innocent mistake!” said Watson, an avid hunter, who acknowledged the ammo was his; it was accidentally left in his bag, he said.“A bonehead mistake.”On April 11, Watson and his wife Valerie, 38, were returning home from their Caribbean vacation when airport staff discovered the small amount of ammo in his carry-on luggage. The bullets were in a small zip-lock bag and were apparently missed by the American Transportation Security Administration on their way there. Valerie was held in prison for 11 days but her charges were dropped Monday. She has since returned home to be with their two children in Oklahoma. 'We were trying to pack board-shorts and flip flops. Packing ammunition was not at all our intent,” Valerie told CBS News.She said she and her husband were in Turks and Caicos celebrating a friend’s birthday, but it “went from what was supposed to be a dream vacation to a nightmare.”Before his court hearing Watson said his heart sank when he saw the bullets —- he immediately recognized them from a recent white tail deer hunting trip, per the Daily Mail. “I recognized them and thought, 'what a bonehead mistake,’” he said. “I had no idea that those were in there.”The couple’s passports were seized by local authorities, who brushed off Watson’s protests that it was a “complete innocent mistake.”Turks and Caicos prosecutors maintain it’s a serious offence to carry ammo; in 2022 the nation passed a law that designates a minimum of a 12-year prison sentence for ammunition possession. Upon hearing the mandatory minimum sentence, Valerie said she was “immediately terrified.”“We can't be in prison for 12 years, we have kids at home,” she said. Watson was held at Chalk Sound police station until he posted bail. His passport is still seized so he is unable to leave the island. “I’ve been thinking about this moment for a while and I didn’t know when it was going to happen. I was prepared to also be arrested yesterday,” Valerie told KOCO News. “I don't know if I even have words to describe it, just getting to hold them again. It just filled my momma-heart and made me so happy. It just gives me a lot of comfort knowing that I get to be here with them now, but my wife-heart is still breaking because Ryan is not with me.”She is working with a number of prominent Oklahoma politicians including Governor Kevin Stitt and Senator Markwayne Mullin to get her husband released, she said. Stitt in a letter to Turks and Caicos authorities described Ryan as an “avid outdoorsman,” and leaving the ammo in the bag was a complete oversight and not an intentional attempt to break the law. A GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign has also been launched to offset legal expenses. So far it has raised more than $106,000. “We know that God’s still working and he’s working through us,” said Valerie.
