On 04-03-19 at approximately 4 p.m., the defendant, Anthony Sabella, was involved in a verbal altercation with the victims, Lamark Hopkins and Mark Desin, in front of the defendant’s residence, located at 14121 Finsbury Drive in Spring Hill.
Hopkins owns and operates a lawn care business. Employees of the business provided lawn care services to a customer next door to the defendant, earlier in the day. Hopkins received a phone call from the defendant stating that the lawn service employees had gotten grass on the defendant’s walkway. Hopkins told the defendant that he (Hopkins) would return himself and clean up the clippings.
When Hopkins, along with an employee, arrived to do the cleanup, the defendant exited his residence and began yelling at them. Both parties became engaged in a verbal disturbance over the lawn situation. Hopkins asked the defendant if he was going to hit him and the defendant replied, “I’m not going to hit you, I’m going to shoot your XXX XXX.”
After making the threat, the defendant went inside his residence.
Wishing to avoid further altercation, Hopkins and the employee got back into their vehicle and left the area.
While leaving the Avalon subdivision, Hopkins stopped at the stop sign at Oak Chase Boulevard and Anderson Snow Road. At this time he observed the defendant, in a white vehicle, pulled up next to the lawn care vehicle. Again, the defendant began yelling at Hopkins and his employee. Being that traffic was heavy, Hopkins was unable to pull out onto Anderson Snow Road.
Hopkins and his employee then observed the defendant raise a black handgun and point it at each of them. The defendant continued to yell racial slurs and threaten to kill the men.
As soon as traffic cleared, Hopkins pulled away and contacted 9-1-1 to report the encounters. The defendant returned back into the Villages of Avalon.
Numerous attempts were made by patrol deputies to contact the defendant. All attempts were met with negative results.
The investigation was turned over to Major Case detectives.
Detectives obtained a warrant for the arrest of Anthony George Sabella W/M DOB/03-14- 1971. The charges were as follows:
Possession of Firearm/Ammunition by Convicted Felon
Aggravated Assault w/Firearm (2 counts)
Bond – None.
On 04-25-19, Major Case detectives, Warrants detectives, and patrol deputies waited in various places throughout the Villages of Avalon for Sabella to leave his residence. Just after 9 a.m., he left the residence and was stopped by detectives.
Anthony Sabella was placed under arrest and transported to the Hernando County Detention Center, where he remains.
Detectives then executed a search warrant on Sabella’s residence on Finsbury Drive.
During the search warrant, detectives located a CO2 pellet gun under a sofa. The barrel of the gun had been drilled out.
