Judge denies release for man who allegedly sold illegal gun modifiers
MARTINSBURG, W.VA. >> The attorney for a West Virginia man accused of running an illegal gun modifier online business that purportedly sold “wall hangers” has once again asked the court to free his client, court records show.
Timothy Watson of Ranson, West Virginia, was arrested and charged IN November, as part of the large-scale federal investigation into the so-called Boogaloo movement after one follower allegedly murdered two Northern California law enforcement officers in separate incidents last summer.
Watson is alleged to have sold “wall hangers” — pieces of plastic capable of rendering certain firearms into fully automatic weapons — to Steven Carrillo, the former U.S. Air Force sergeant accused of killing Federal Protective Services Officer Dave Patrick Underwood in May in downtown Oakland, then gunning down Santa Cruz Sheriff’s
Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller a week later. Since the arrest of Carrillo and the alleged driver in the Underwood killing in June, federal authorities have charged several other Boogaloo followers, including Watson, who were in contact with Carrillo before the killings.
Watson’s attorney, Shawn Mcdermott, has filed multiple motions seeking to free his client on the grounds that the accusations against Watson are overblown. In court filings, he’s compared prosecutors drawing a line between his client and the alleged crimes of Carrillo and other Boogaloo followers to blaming a liquor store owner when someone splices a cigar and rolls it into a marijuana blunt.
Watson is a “compassionate young man” and against violence, Mcdermott wrote in court filings.
“While Mr. Watson may be many things, a violent extremist is not one of them. While he does strongly believe in liberty, the United States Constitution and be an advocate for the Second Amendment, he has never sought to cause harm to anyone or advocate for violence,” McDermott wrote in a February appeal of a judge’s prior order to keep Watson jailed. “Mr. Watson would request that this court reject the Boogaloo boogie man that the government is trying to make Mr. Watson out to be.”
Prosecutors, though, have painted Watson as a budding extremist with strong ties to the anti-government Boogaloo movement. When he was arrested last year, federal agents discovered two firearms in his room as well as a silencer, authorities said.
“Defendant was disgruntled with the IRS because he could not pay his taxes with cash during COVID. Special Agent Mcneal testified that there were recordings on electronic devices seized during the investigation where (Watson) states, ‘Those people need to die,’” and ‘Before COVID-19 ends, the world might call me a crazed gun man,’” prosecutors wrote in a response to Mcdermott’s motion. “Additionally, Special Agent Mcneal testified in relation to the IRS incident, that Defendant told his girlfriend, that he was going to ‘kill ‘em’, ‘blow up the building’, and/or ‘deface federal property.’ ”
A judge has not yet ruled on the latest motion to free Watson and in the interim he will remain in federal custody. His trial date has been tentatively set for April 20, court records show.