Woman Speaks Out After Facing 12 Years In Turks Caicos Several Men Still Hoping For Release | The Millionaire Morning Show w/ Anton Daniels

Oh! Oh, okay. All right. This is what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to address this. So I’ve been talking about this for a little while now, and there has been several white men that was over in Turks and Caicos getting arrested, right? And one of the things that they was arrested for was having bullets and ammunition, spare bullets and ammunition, inside of, inside of their luggage. Now, Turks and Caicos said, listen, we’re giving out football numbers, 12 years minimum, 12 years minimum for anybody that we catch over here with random bullets and ammunition, random bullets and ammunition over here inside of the United States or coming over to Turks and Caicos.

We don’t care where you’re from, and if you’re from the United States of America, you’re going to be facing 12 years. There’s been several white men that’s been detained over there. Recently, one of them has been freed, and then also a black woman has been detained over there. So I want to keep you guys up to date on what’s going on in these streets. May, make sure you hit a like for the algorithm. Subscribe to the channel and turn on your notifications. An American who pleaded guilty to carrying ammunition in Turks and Caicos will not face prison time.

A judge found there were exceptional circumstances to avoid the 12 year mandatory minimum sentence for Brian Hegridge. His prison sentence of 52 weeks was suspended. He’ll have to pay a $6,700 fine. Hegridge was charged after hunting ammo was found in his checked luggage in February. Wait, wait, wait, so you telling me that they basically fleecing Americans for money. They said, listen, you got to pay a $6,700 fine in order to be released. And we’re going to be able to suspend your sentence from over there in Turks and Caicos. So Turks, y’all over there fleecing Americans for money, hoping to catch something on them.

Are y’all even planting stuff in Saturday luggage? You ain’t got to worry about time, dawg. You ain’t never got to worry about time, dawg. Seven foot in Turks and Caicos. Hegridge was charged after hunting ammo was found in his checked luggage in February. He’s one of five Americans charged with carrying ammunition in their luggage. All of them say they didn’t realize they had bullets with them. Oh, not a serita. Listen, I like readers. I like readers. You got Rita over there, a smooth young lady. I love her. And then the Tyler’s, listen, Tyler, Ryan, Brian and Michael, all of those sound like good American names, wholesome names that at one point was probably rolling up the cattle and making sure that they tame horses.

Possessing a gun or ammunition is illegal in the British territory. Let’s bring in CBS News national correspondent, Momoko Jorge. So, Manuel, walk us through what happened in the courtroom today. Yeah, this went down just about an hour ago that the judge decided to hand down that sentence of 12 months suspended and that $6,700 fine. But there was a lot of concern going into the hearing today. No meetups in the talks. No guarantee that would happen, that those five Americans may actually have been sentenced to up to 12 years in prison, which is a mandatory sentence for anyone possessing ammunition or firearms on the islands of Turks and Caicos.

So, that was the big concern going into this. He very well could soon be on his way home. The question now is those four other Americans who say they were found with stray bullets in their bags and that was an accident, whether they will go through essentially the same type of sentencing here. That is what many of them were hoping, even though- I’m trying to figure out and what this does is this sets the precedence for the possibility of getting other Americans free. Now, the American government is basically warning y’all and they’re saying, hey, listen, don’t go over there.

Or if you go over there and you get caught up with some stuff, know that we can’t get you back. So, I need y’all to be aware of what’s happening in all of these other countries and all of these people allegedly are getting caught with some spare random ammunition inside of their luggage. And so, now they get arrested, they can’t go home and they possibly face in 12 years, but one of the guys was recently released on a suspended sentence and he had to pay $6,700 in order to be getting from over there.

It’s a pretty steep fine. They were hoping to avoid jail time and that seems to be- Yeah, so given what we know about the circumstances involving the others, I mean, do we have a sense that what happened here in this case, this suspended sentence, maybe could be what happens- Give me whatever fine you want. You know, a lot of people will wonder that and that may be because this will set some sort of precedent for the others that indeed that is what happens. But again, there’s no guarantee. There have been a lot of talking back and forth between the United States and Turks and Caicos and they essentially said, look, we have to let our legal process play out and the judge does have discretion.

That’s what happened, at least in this one case. You can imagine though, those other Americans may be breathing a sigh of relief today, just seeing what happened in this first case. You know, you mentioned Turks and Caicos officials saying, let’s let our own judicial system play out. How did they get this stuff passed our own TSA when they traveling over to Turks and Caicos in the first place? Anyways, so the black woman apparently was speaking out. Now we starting to get word from her because we heard from the white man when they got caught over there with their bullets.

And so now we want to hear from her. Miss Rita from Orlando got caught up there too. She’s the first woman and first black woman that actually got caught up there. And part of the reason also is because I believe that she was traveling. She wasn’t traveling with a man or a companion because in a lot of these other cases, and I could be wrong, so correct me if I’m wrong, but a lot of these other cases, what’s happening is the guy goes over there with his family. So it’s a wife and a husband.

Uh, the luggage get caught up. The husband wind up taking a rap. The wife comes back home, tends to the kids until they figure it all out. And then they get released. Well, she is the first woman to get caught up over there. And it’s largely because I’m assuming because she’s a single independent woman. And I bet now that does not make it, you know, me harder on her. But I’m just saying when y’all making an adjustment, and y’all decided to go to some of these countries, be careful of what you get yourself into, because now you got to take responsibility for it.

There’s no man to take a rap for you. You know what I’m saying? This morning we are hearing from two more Americans who have been detained in Turks and Caicos after ammunition was found in their luggage. Now five Americans face up to 12 years in prison in the Caribbean territory. None of them were found to be carrying any firearms. Chris Van Cleen was first report on this story. As the latest is the Americans fight for leniency together. I never experienced nothing like that. Fighting back tears. Sharita Greer still can’t believe her surprise Mother’s Day dream vacation with her daughter has turned into a nightmare.

I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. And again, it doesn’t mean I don’t think that she should get 12 years, but I’m no judge and jury and I can’t determine the rules of other countries. You know what I’m saying? But there was no man to be able to take the rap for. And so she got it as a Mother’s Day gift. And so she traveled with her daughters. You get caught up. Ain’t no man to be able to take that that alpha. You ought to be able to handle it for you.

So it was just so unreal to me. And all they kept saying was like, this is a serious charge. 12 years mandatory to treat prison. 12 years. The Orlando grandmother was heading home when airport security in Turks and Caicos spotted two bullets lodged under a flap in her carry-on bag. You spent a few nights behind bars. I did. What was that experience like? They chained me to a chair by my leg. It’s cold, scared. It was awful. It was so awful. I couldn’t sleep. No peace. Thank you, Steven. I’m going to be reading that superjest for you.

Greer is now the fifth American in recent months, facing up to a potential 12-year mandatory prison sentence after ammo was allegedly found in their luggage as they were leaving Turks and Caicos. I wonder if we have rules as strict as that here. Would it still be as much crime happening over here as it is in some of these places in these liberal cities? All five say they did not realize the ammo was in their bag. I wake up every day thinking that it’s going to make more sense to me. And it doesn’t. Ryan Watson, a father of two from Oklahoma, will be in court next week.

I can tell. The kids are hurting. It’s probably too much weight for an adult to bear, let alone a seven and a nine-year-old. The TSA acknowledges officers missed four rounds of hunting ammo in Watson’s carry-on bag last month at the Oklahoma City Airport, TSA administrator David Pakoski. How are you going to stop bullets from getting missed? We’re never going to be able to stop everything that we want to stop. So when we do have these misses, we take them very seriously and do everything we can to figure out why. Now there is growing pressure on the tourist hot spot.

Three U.S. governors sent letters asking for leniency, and a congressional delegation just left the islands after meeting with top leaders. They were very clear that, you know, there’s going to be times for discretion and the expedition, and everybody is all on the same side of wanting this to come out. So she finally speaks out and she said that it’s a difficult situation, and it’s cold, maybe chaining you up in there. But the Turks and Caicos leader responds about all of these people facing these charges over in this country. Take a look. Tonight, new hope for the five Americans detained in Turks and Caicos, charged with bringing ammunition into the country, now facing a 12-year prison sentence.

We do not target U.S. citizens or any other nationality. Today, the tropical islands leader, saying that mandatory minimum has never been imposed by the court and can be overruled in cases with exceptional circumstances. Judges can impose a custodial sentence of less than 12 years, and they find that they consider fair and just. The statement comes amid increasing pressure from elected officials in the U.S. If they’re not reasonable with how they treat our citizens, then I think we ought to issue a do-not-travel advisory. A bipartisan group. And that’s the power that you then have as an American, is that if you don’t like something that’s happening in somebody else’s country, then you can issue a do-not-travel advisory to Turks and Caicos.

And then what you do is you start to make them suffer in tourism dollars, and then that’s going to force them to make the adjustment, because they don’t want their citizens to be detained under what they would feel is to be very egregious laws that ultimately keep you down and out, possibly for years, or even months to come, right? But the other side of that conversation is you don’t get to determine what the laws are in other countries, and so if you don’t like it, then you have the option of not going there.

That’s the other caveat. Understand how it is and how it works in other countries. Understand what’s going on and why, but you can’t go over there and you can’t start making the rules in the same way that we don’t want people to come over here and start making the rules. Now, me in particular, I have decided that there are so many other places inside of the world that I can travel to that I don’t have to worry about catching 12 years if I just so happen to miss a bullet that just so happened to roll over inside of my backpack that I never had in there in the first place, and then I get caught, and then I’m out there got to get fleece for $10,000 just because I want to get home back to my family.

You know what I’m saying? So me personally, I’m not going over to Turks and Caicos, ever. And it’s not, I don’t need to as much. I’m not that desperate for a Turks and Caicos vacation in order to take the risk. And so until they change, then I’ll just be chilling here in the United States of America, and I don’t have to deal with this nonsense. A group of lawmakers traveling to the islands on Monday and turning up the heat on Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Capitol Hill this week. Your department is just weak.

It’s feckless. One is a grandmother from Florida. She was caught with two rounds of ammunition in her purse. She was chained to a desk for three days. You don’t need to say anything. Prompting this fiery exchange. And the detention of those Americans that bring them home. We’re done talking. You need to now act. I will apologize to no one. Well, for the efforts that our people make every day. All of this as the freedom of five Americans hang in the balance, including the latest to be arrested. Florida grandmother Charita Shanice Greer. That day, trying my whole life upside down.

Just that quick. The only trouble she’s ever been in before, a speeding ticket. Until she was arrested at the Turks and Caicos airport on May 13th after security found two bullets in her bag. That’s crazy, bro. It’s crazy. Why would a grandmother have two bullets inside of her bag? And then she got to be careful what she say, because she’s basically at the mercy of that other country. She can’t say nothing as opposed to it and say, well, maybe they planted it on me or whatever like that, because I don’t know.

Maybe she just had two random bullets inside of her backpack as a grandmother in Orlando. You know what I’m saying? But she can’t say nothing because then it makes her look bad and it makes the country look bad, which they could possibly retaliate when she go before a judge. So now she just got to say, oh my God, I’m under duress. Please get me out of here. Man, I couldn’t be bothered. It was an honest mistake. It fell up under the bottom of the flap in my carry on. And it was no way possible that I could see it.

Now facing the unimaginable, thinking of her family back home and hoping for leniency. Missing my grandkids, my children. I got a whole life of loving family back home and I just want all of us to make it home. I’m sorry, Hopo. Who is these people? Are these the other men that were detained over there? Or is this a part of your loving family? Anyways, send prayers up for old girl because we don’t want her over there doing no 12 years. I would rather Brittany Griner head back over to Russia and then have Rita over there from Orlando that ain’t never got no trouble in their life over doing 12 years in Turks and Caicos.

You know what I’m saying?
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