Weekend Blotter: Accusations of Child Abuse And of Assault on a Pregnant Woman

Gunnar Galambos is a 22-year-old resident of Hazelnut Street in Bunnell. He’s not a good driver: his record, a long list of traffic infractions, indicates little respect for rules of the road: four cases of speeding, expired registration, driving without headlights on, failure to carry a driver’s license, careless driving, several instances of running red lights, running a stop sign, expired registration, and three years ago, leaving the scene of a crash with injury, a third-degree felony. That charge was dropped.

Until Saturday, however, Galambos had never been charged with a violent crime. That changed just after midnight Saturday when he was faced with three felony charges, including a child abuse charge.

The charges stem from a confrontation between Galambos and his live-in girlfriend, who alleged that he assaulted her and their 5-week-old daughter, who she said Galambos threw on a couch as she sat in her mobile car seat.

The confrontation started when the alleged victim returned from work with her 5-week-old daughter and noticed an unknown vehicle in the driveway. The woman woke Galambos up to ask him about the car, and learned that it belonged to another woman. So she called her aunt to tell her she was coming over with the baby, whose father is Galambos.

According to the alleged victim’s account to a Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy, Galambos got upset, got out of bed and “struck her on the left side of her face with a closed fist,” his arrest report states. The woman tried to get out of the bedroom to flee the house, but was unable to do so as Galambos allegedly threw her against a wall mirror, shattering it, restraining her there, then throwing her against the bedroom door hard enough that the door was knocked off his hinges. A deputy walking through the house subsequently would note the broken mirror and broken door in his report.

The alleged victim said Galambos tried to choke her several times in the bedroom but she fought him off. Once in the living room she was able to grab her daughter’s car seat to leave the house but, she claims, Galambos “snatched the car seat out of her hand and threw [the infant] onto the couch” about four or five feet away. The car seat landed on its side. The girl was restrained in the seat. Galambos, the alleged victim said, grabbed her and threw her to the ground, mounting her (she was on her back) and placing both his hands around her neck, starting to choke her to such a point that “she started to black out before he loosened his grip.”

“I will break your neck and kill you if you leave with my daughter,” Galambos is alleged to have told the woman as she was under his power on the ground. She said she was able to fight him off and get back on her feet and flee the house with her daughter after Galambos, who had been drinking, went to the kitchen to vomit. She told police it wasn’t the first time he’d struck her after getting drunk.

She drove to a safe location and called police. A deputy noticed “an obvious red mark to the left side of her cheek which became more prominent over time,” and “several other red marks to the neck, arms, wrists and other marks under her shirt,” the latter being photographed by a family member. She declined medical evaluation but said she wanted to press charges, and gave sheriff’s deputy permission to enter her house–which they subsequently did, using a key, after several attempts to get the door opened from within: they’d knocked and announced themselves, but no one came to the door, even though Galambos was inside.

Once deputies were inside, Galambos appeared and was arrested without incident. He was charged with domestic battery by strangulation, child abuse and false imprisonment. He posted bail on $15,000 bond and was released.

On Saturday (March 5), Anthony Vangordon, 20, was arrested on a felony charge of aggravated battery on a pregnant woman after she accused him of flipping a mattress while she was still on it.

The couple had been dating since September and had lived on Price Lane in Palm Coast before moving to Vangordon’s father’s house on Lambert Avenue in Flagler Beach. The alleged victim reported the incident while she was at Florida Hospital Flagler. She told a Flagler Beach police officer that Vangordon had started an argument about money and a car, and that he wanted her out of the house.

“While she was packing, he handed her cash and then ripped it out of her hand and pushed her,” according to Vangordon’s arrest report. “He told her he was done with her and she can just abort their child because he can just have another with someone else.” The victim, who is 15 weeks pregnant, went to her mother’s house, from where she initially called police .

Vangordon in 2014 was charged with domestic battery. That charge was dropped. The latest charge is a second-degree felony. He was booked at the Flagler County Jail. posted bail on $7,500 bond and was released.