by Christian Duque
How the mighty have fallen. The latest installment in the Wes Watson saga shows us the arrest that he did not want anyone to see. We see this once proud shot caller who commands respect and who threatens people with physical violence pleading with police like a little girl. The reality of the matter is the YouTube personality, level four gang shot caller was totally distraught in the face of law enforcement. Suddenly his entire ascent to lavish riches and excess nearly disappeared before his very eyes.
Just like Jon said in his video recap, I’m sure that Wes thought about the possibility of him having to return to prison. What would become of his empire? What would become of his social media following? Would everything be waiting for him when he comes out or would he lose it all? When he spoke to the police officers during this second encounter he’s no longer yelling and screaming. He was no longer threatening them. He was no longer feeling outraged and offended by the fact that he was being questioned. He was no longer talking about the 7-ft tall monster having a firearm or the fact that he was merely defending himself.
Well, he still did raise these ridiculous arguments, but he was more concerned with whether or not he was getting arrested. He asked the officers to cuff him from the front even though they didn’t oblige. WHY WOULD LEO’S do that with an ex-con who did 10yrs?. He then talked and talked and talked while he was in the backseat of the patrol car. It seemed very important to him to gain the favor of whatever officers he came into contact with. He wanted to make sure that he was still somewhat in control of the situation, but he must have known by this point that he had lost all semblance of power. He must have also known that everything that was transpiring would go viral on social media. He thought he could get the cops to turn their cameras off. What a tool!
It was over. Even the gym that he worked out at could no longer protect him. His gang of flunkies could no longer parrot lies in order to get him off. The victim doesn’t want to be his friend, the victim can’t be bought off.Moreover, the victim pressed charges. More importantly, however, the State followed through with a criminal complaint. It’s not the victim vs Wes. It’s the State of Florida vs Wes Watson, now.
When the state is charging you with a crime, it doesn’t really matter if the victim is on board with it or not. It doesn’t matter if the victim testifies or not. It doesn’t matter if the victim asks the prosecutors to go easy on the accused or if the victim asks to withdraw the charges. It just doesn’t work that way. Once the video of the gang style attack went to the detectives, they did their due diligence. They escalated it and handed it over to the prosecutors, who then determined that a crime had taken place. But not just any crime. They didn’t deem it to be mutual combat or even, simple battery. They determined that what they saw amounted to felony assault and battery. That’s right folks, did you hear me there? We are talking about a felony. We are talking about a one-way ticket back to prison for Wes Watson. He knows how this works. He knows what he’s up against. But his obsession with being in control and his obsession of being an alpha male served to further dig him deeper into a hole that he really cannot get himself out of.
Even while sitting there handcuffed and completely powerless, he still talked. He still incriminated himself. He even gave off that he was challenging people to come to the gym to fight him over social media. These are things that he cannot take back. Once he was arrested (he was probably) Mirandaized or he should have been. And at that point whatever he said can be used against him. But even though he may or may not have been Mirandaized, there’s still an argument that whatever he said, can still come in. Because he’s speaking completely freely. He’s not being threatened and he’s not being coerced. Therefore anything that he says is fair game to a certain regard. Even if it cannot come in as evidence, it can always come in for impeachment purposes. He cannot lie about what he said. The prosecutors will find a way to use it to discredit him. and very much like once you push toothpaste out of a tube – you can’t put it back in. So too, once you lose your credibility- it’s pretty much gone. Your attorney(s) can try to bolster your testimony and/or try to bolster your character, but it’s a never ending, almost unwinnable fight. Once you lie to the face of the court and you are shown to be incredible, you’re pretty much done.
In a very real way, I feel terrible for his attorney. As I’ve said on many of my Instagram and YouTube videos, I hope that he got a good enough retainer up front. This case is not going to be cheap by any stretch of the imagination. If I was Wes, I would imagine he will want to file continuance after continuance in hopes of not being sentenced. At this point how can he win this case? This was not a matter of self-defense. Nobody that saw the video will say as much. Wes had no injuries. The victim, on the other hand, sustained a face fracture, possible concussion, and possible traumatic brain injury, not to mention it was not even a fair fight. It was never one on one. It was four or five – on one. And it’s a mystery to me that his other co-conspirators have not been charged. There is ample grounds for all of them to be charged with felony assault and battery. It’s just a matter of time before the prosecutors act on that. I think that if they do nothing, it would amount to a miscarriage of justice.
But we haven’t even scraped the tip of the iceberg. We are only talking about Wes Watson’s criminal case. We haven’t even begun to discuss possible civil litigation against Wes, his co-defendants, and the gym in question.And what if the gym had succeeded in getting Miami police officers to either instruct or convince the victim into erasing the video footage on his phone? Would the gym then have lost the video footage they had? That’s speculative. But the question remains, why did the gym want the victim to erase his footage? However you look at it, that amounts to destruction of evidence. It amounts to interfering with a criminal investigation. No matter how you look at it, it doesn’t look good for the gym. It almost looks like the gym is an active participant. And if you go back to the body cam footage, you will hear a Miami police officer asking another Miami police officer if a manager of the gym was involved in the beatdown of the victim. Again, there’s ample grounds here for civil litigation against all parties included. But there may also be more criminal charges coming.
If anything can be gleaned from the arrest video, it’s that Wes was not in charge. Wes was no longer in charge of his destiny. He knew it, the arresting officers knew it, the detectives who investigated knew it, and the prosecutors who are going to try him at open court, they know it as well. Someone else that knows it, is Wes’s defense attorney.
Therefore taking this case to trial would be an abysmally stupid mistake. There is no way that Wes is going to be able to be exonerated. There are no mitigating circumstances here. there are no grounds for which Watson’s actions would be excusable. Therefore the only thing that is left for him to do at this point is to get the best possible deal. And I can’t imagine any deal would be offered to him that did not include mandatory prison time. He will probably be on probation for an indefinite period of time after release and he will also probably be unable to leave the state of Florida during that process. We’re talking years. For now, Wes is out on bond, but that can also change. If at any point in time the court deems him to be a flight risk, he will be bounced back into jail until the case is completely over.
I don’t care how much money Watson pumps into his legal defense, he can either plea deal, or drag the case out for months, maybe years. But ultimately he is going to be found guilty if he’s stupid enough to take the case to trial. And if he takes it to trial, he’s not going to get 5 years, which would be achieved through a plea deal. He will probably get the maximum, which will be a lot closer to 15 years than to 5. He also probably won’t get any kind of probation or early release, either. If Wes forces this to trial and he forces the State of Florida to expend resources to prosecute him, he will be punished for as much.
And before anyone argues that, here, in the United States the government has the burden of proof and every single person is innocent until proven guilty, let me save you the argument. While those two premises are true, prosecutors punish criminal defendants all the time that force them into full hearings. And there is nothing unconstitutional about it. I’m sure Wes’s attorney will enlighten his stupid client, if he is unaware of this reality. I mean, after all, this is an individual that’s done a decade in prison. I’d think he’d know this.
In closing, I suspect that we have not heard the last of this matter. Jon’s video on the body cam footage got half a million views in just a few days. I suspect the arrest video will do equal numbers. My hope Is that after this loser goes back to prison, the sport of bodybuilding and the fitness industry as a community will rid itself of these jailbirds and ex-con thugs that for some reason are commanding massive numbers. They are not role models. They have not changed our lives. They continue to glamorize the criminal mistakes that they made in their “past life” and they are making a killing off of it, today. I don’t understand why anybody would subscribe to a program to become a better man when the person teaching it is a complete zero.
In any event, I invite you to leave your feedback in the comments. Also please be sure to share a link to this article on all your social media feeds. I guarantee you that it’s going to drum up some considerable conversation. As always, thank you for reading my article, here, at IronMag.