Watson
KINGSTON – A Kingston man was sentenced in Ulster County Court to 15 years in state prison on three separate felonies. Kashawn Taffawe Watson, 24, was convicted after a jury trial on June 9 of one count of robbery and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
Watson and a second person, wearing black ski masks and carrying a loaded gun and an electric stun gun, entered a home on Albany Avenue in Kingston on June 7, 2016, at about 4:45 a.m. demanded money.
Several residents were present at the time with Watson and the other person threatening them at gunpoint, and then using nylon zip-ties, tied them up and assaulted them.
During a struggle with one of the residents a shot was fired. The spend round, which was found in the floor, was matched through ballistics testing to a handgun found in an abandoned car on Downs Street, about two blocks from the home invasion.
Also found in the car were two black ski masks, one of which contained Watson’s DNA.
Shortly after the trial, Watson pled guilty to an unrelated case. That plea to criminal sale of a controlled substance was for a drug sale in July of this year in the City of Kingston. Watson received a concurrent sentence of three years plus two years of post-release supervision on the drug conviction.
Watson moved to Ulster County from Poughkeepsie in 2005. He attended Kingston High School until his junior year. He has been residentially placed through family court, and has been placed on adult probation as a youthful offender. Those convictions represent his first adult criminal convictions.
He also faces federal gun and drug sale charges after his arrest in October 2016 by federal authorities following the swept known as “Blood Clot.”
