Man expected to plead guilty after allegedly driving car into bake shop and car battery store
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AMMON – A 23-year-old man is expected to admit guilt to allegedly driving his car into an Ammon bake shop and a car battery store in March.
Karl Anthony L. Watson will likely plead guilty to felony malicious injury to property, according to court filings.
Watson was originally charged with felony malicious injury to property, misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor use or possession of drug paraphernalia.
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According to the proposed plea agreement, Watson has agreed to plead guilty to the felony charge of malicious injury to property, and the prosecution will agree to drop the remaining misdemeanor charges.
The prosecution will also recommend that Watson be ordered to apply to a problem-solving court. If he is accepted, the state will recommend probation with the condition that Watson completes problem-solving court.
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The agreement is non-binding on the court, meaning that District Judge Bruce Pickett does not have to sentence Watson to the recommended time and can sentence him to more or less time if he sees fit.
Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 8 at 10:30 a.m. at the Bonneville County Courthouse.
The Geraldine’s Bake Shoppe & Deli incident
On March 29, around 5:15 pm, Watson was arrested and booked into the Bonneville County Jail after reportedly driving a car into Geraldine’s Bake Shoppe & Deli in Ammon.
Amber Miller, the business owner’s daughter, told EastIdahoNews.com it happened about 15 minutes after she had arrived for work.
“There was a gentleman definitely under the influence of something. He decided to try and drive through the building,” Miller said. “He came through and acted like he was going to park but then he just kept driving and he drove right through the window, not all the way through, but the glass came down.”
She said he backed up and drove through the parking lot in what looked like a Dodge sedan.
Miller called 911 while trying to keep her and the three other employees safe.
“He went around the passenger side of the car and got into the back seat and started to get something out. I don’t know what he was getting but he shut the door,” she said. “I didn’t know if he was armed so I was trying to make sure that all the employees were safe.”
Miller said she and the employees began to go back further into the building because they didn’t know what he was doing.
“He just kept yelling that there were people that were going to die. He then tried to get into the front door. The front doors were still locked luckily. He proceeded to try and kick the glass out of the window so that he could get through,” Miller said.
Miller and her colleagues locked themselves inside a room while waiting for law enforcement, who arrived three to four minutes later. None of the employees recognized Watson and he was never able to get inside the bake shop.
“I was a little shaken up by it. With everything that has gone on in the news lately in the last couple of days, you just never know what people are going to do,” Miller said. “It was scary, especially where he got out and was yelling about how people were going to die. It was crazy.”
Deputies from the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office responded along with an Idaho State Police trooper.
They believe Watson was intoxicated and found him in possession of a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, according to a news release from the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office.
Watson had an active warrant for his arrest out of Bonneville County, and he was taken to the Bonneville County Jail after a medical clearance at a local hospital.
Sgt. Bryan Lovell, a spokesman with the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office, told EastIdahoNews.com Watson was not armed.
The Batteries Plus incident
In another incident the same day, Idaho Falls police responded at 6 a.m. to a hit-and-run at Batteries Plus off Channing Way.
Three large glass windows were damaged. There were tire tracks in the snow leading to the windows, as well as tire marks on the sidewalk directly in front of the windows.
No one was inside the store during the incident, court documents said.
A Bonneville County Sheriff’s deputy came to the scene to assist after he was involved in the previous incident with Watson.
Deputies had already taken Watson to a local hospital for jail clearance after the bake shop incident. An Idaho Falls police officer went to the hospital to speak with Watson and asked him what had happened in the city and if he had been involved in the Batteries Plus accident.
“Karl told me he had not run into a building since he was a teenager,” an officer said in court documents.
The officer said there was an accident at Batteries Plus. Watson asked, “I went to Batteries Plus?”
He told the officer what he remembered. He said he and a lady were talking, and the next thing he knew, he was at Dixie’s Diner. He said he was there alone, even though he told the officer there were other people with him.
He noticed the back door at Dixie’s Diner was open and said he was chasing his daughter around.
He remembered “rolling forward, hit the bumper, went onto the bumper a little bit and … slammed on the brakes and went back.”
He said he thought everything was a dream and remembers very little of what happened.
Officers double-checked to see if his daughter was okay, since Watson mentioned her, and requested a welfare check. She was not with him during the incident and was safe.
Watson said he drove a Dodge Avenger. The owner of Batteries Plus had surveillance footage that showed his vehicle crashing into the windows. The damage was estimated to be around $10,000.