Million-dollar bond for armed robbery suspect

Tranandra Watkins was only out of prison for a month when authorities said he struck again, threatening to shoot a couple in Wilton Manors while taking their belongings.

On Tuesday, Broward Judge John Hurley set bond at more than a million dollars for Watkins, who is charged with two counts of robbery with a firearm, grand theft and fraud.

“You represent an extreme danger, a violent danger, to the people in Broward County,” Hurley said during Watkins’ first-appearance court hearing.

Watkins, 27, of Lauderdale Lakes, is accused of approaching a couple as they got out of their car at 11:30 p.m. Sunday in the 300 block of Northwest 24th Street. He demanded the woman hand over her purse, and took a backpack from the man. He then “allegedly told them to run down the street and not look back or you’d shoot them in the head,” Hurley said while reading from the arrest report filed in the case.

“They ran for their lives,” said Wilton Manors Sgt. Biagio Balistreri.

According to the report, police were able to track Watkins by using the victims’ iPhones.

His rental car contained the cellphones and other items that were taken, authorities said. Police also found a small black handgun, later discovered to be a toy.

Even so, Hurley wasn’t convinced that the man and woman were robbed with a fake gun.

“There was plenty of time for you to ditch a real weapon,” he said.

Hurley ordered bond set at $500,000 for each of the armed robbery counts and $1,000 each for the grand theft and fraud charges.

Assistant Public Defender Dale Miller argued that setting a bond of more than a million dollars was “punitive and would be tantamount to no bond,” for Watkins, who he said works at a car wash, has to care for five young children and has no money in the bank.

But Hurley was not persuaded, especially because Watkins was just released from state prison on June 2 after serving six years for strong-arm robbery and home-invasion robbery.

“Now you’re threatening to shoot people in the head in Wilton Manors,” he said.

Watkins