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Topics: US News, Crime, True crime, YouTube
The UNILAD Team
A man has been caught on camera wandering free from the courtroom when no one's looking despite being found guilty.
You'd think after being found guilty and sentenced to a lengthy spell in prison any hope of freedom would immediately be stripped from you, but apparently not.
A man managed to simply get up and step out of a courtroom in Arkansas despite his guilty verdict.
Honestly, here he is, getting up and walking - not even running - towards the door:
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The man in question is called Joey Watts, and by all accounts his criminal charges suggest that he’s not a very nice man.
He was up in a court in Arkansas facing charges of aggravated assault and felony possession of a firearm, but while the jury were out of the court making their deliberations, Watts just walked straight out of the Grant County Courthouse in Sheridan.
Watts had already been found guilty of the assault charges he was facing at the time of his escape, and the jury also found him guilty of the firearms charges afterwards.
However, as you can see in the video, nobody appears to have been keeping that close an eye on him, as he just sauntered out of the courthouse.
He was eventually apprehended a day later and bundled off to jail, but it’s still not a great look for the law enforcement at the scene, is it?
Deputy Prosecutor Norman Frisby, who was in charge of trying the case, said that Watts simply stood up from next to his attorney and left.
Frisby also explained that Watts had been accused of threatening a woman with a shotgun in his home on 29 November, 2018.
This incident took place a year later in October 2019. In the camera footage, you can see Watts sitting right there in the courtroom, before standing up and heading off. He went straight for the stairs, down the hallway and out of the building through the door.
Frisby said Watts’ attorney had told him not to leave, but he just went right ahead and did it anyway.
In explanation for how this was allowed to happen, Grant County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Pete Roberts told NBC News: "He was out on bond and had not been convicted so this allowed him to move around.”
Frisby added that there wasn’t a second bailiff around to stop him leaving.
At the time, Grant County only had one bailiff and was hiring for another.
The next day, he was captured and three others were arrested for helping him escape from the courthouse.
In the end, the jury returned their verdict and Watts was sentenced to 36 years in prison, with 10 years coming for the assault and 26 years for possession of the firearm. No additional charges were brought against him for his courtroom escape.
Hopefully he’ll find it more difficult to get up and walk straight out of the prison while no one's paying attention.