Paradise Prison: Chapter 1

And I quickly learned that, you know, to possess ammunition there, that's, everybody's just said 12 years.

12 years.

And that just got ingrained in your head over and over again.

And, uh, it scares you to death.

The prison sentence Sergeant Charles mentioned to Ryan, the one he thought was just a bluff, was all too real.

In 2022, the Turks and Caicos House of Assembly increased the mandatory minimum prison sentence to 12 years for possession of firearms and ammunition.

They did so, they claimed, to address a spike in gun-related crime.

Anyone found guilty of illegally possessing these prohibited items was in jeopardy, whether they were a hardened criminal or an American tourist.

The law did allow judges to waive the mandatory minimum for what it described as exceptional circumstances.

Brian's circumstances seemed to fit that description.

He wasn't a criminal, and his cartridges posed no threat to the residents of Turks and Caicos.

In fact, as he would later learn, officials weren't even able to find a gun on the island capable of test-firing his 6.5 millimeter hunting rounds.

It was also true that Americans had been caught with ammunition before, and many of these individuals had been given fines and allowed to return home.

This should have been encouraging, but according to Brian, these more lenient sentences put him in a terrible position.

A lot of the locals, you know, felt that they were unfairly treated because Americans were, what they call slapped on the wrist, given a fine, and they return home.

Where these guys were going to jail for possessing a couple rounds of ammunition.

So there was a very large outcry among their local population that, "Hey, you know, Americans should be in our jails for, for 12 years, too."

Around the same time Brian was arrested, a Turks and Caicos court of appeals was considering this issue.

Brian's lawyer said they'd have to wait for that decision to come out before making their next move.

So the hunter spent his first three lonely weeks on the island dreading what that court would decide.

The ruling came out, which that essentially said, "Hey, like, you can't just get a fine.

Like, they have to all be handled alike." And I never forget that day either.

When that, that came out, uh, my heart just sank, because I mean, [laughs] it just, it flat out said that there's jail time.

When Ryan and Valerie were arrested about a month later, the US Embassy in the Bahamas told them the same thing.

One of the embassy counselors calls me back, says, "Hey, I heard that you got caught in this situation.