Convicted Paul Pierce Stabber Gets 30 Years in Prison for Unrelated Crime

Trevor Watson, one of two men convicted in the 2000 attack on Celtics star Paul Pierce, was sentenced to 30 years in prison last week for the attempted murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration informant in 2010.

During Watson’s sentencing last Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young did not mince words.

“The fact is, sir, that you are a terrorist," Young said. "You are a domestic terrorist. What you did was to terrorize your community and attempt to murder another individual in broad daylight in an effort to put yourself beyond the law…you can run, but the law will find you...this is a just and fair sentence.”

Watson, a 44-year-old Dorchester resident, received the maximum sentence for the crime, which was committed outside Ann’s Unisex Barbershop on Tremont Street in the South End. According to U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, Watson stabbed the DEA informant approximately 10 times last February, causing serious injuries to the victim’s colon and intestines.

While stabbing the informant, Watson said, "you talking, huh? you telling." According to testimony at trial, the informant had provided information against Watson in a federal cocaine trafficking investigation, Ortiz said.

Prosecutors also proved that Watson manipulated witnesses prepared to testify against him in the Paul Pierce trial by exposing letters and phone calls made from prison to his associates.

In those letters, Watson wrote, "I had introduced my lawyer to the fact that if the victim in my case was to sign an affidavit saying I'm not the guy who stabbed him, it was some Spanish guy about 30, which I am not either, I'll be alright..." and "The Paul Pierce case was the same way, but at trial he changed his statements and I got found not guilty of att. mur. (attempted murder)."

Prior to the Pierce trial, one witness told investigators she saw a man named "Trevor" stab Pierce, but recanted that statement before trial, according to prosecutors.

Watson served a one-year sentence after being convicted of assault and battery.

On Thursday, Ortiz released a statement praising the court’s decision to award Watson a maximum sentence.

“Today’s sentence should send a strong message that tampering with a government informant or investigation will result in severe consequences,” she said. “This defendant’s actions and the level of violence that he exhibited were unconscionable and he will serve the next three decades in prison as a result.”