Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols on Tuesday sentenced Levi “Feezy” D’Antonio Ayers to seven years in prison as a result of a series of nine car burglaries, a car and a gun theft in the C, P, L and E sections of Palm Coast four years ago, when Ayers was 19. He had two accomplices.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s investigation of the case led to the arrests of Ayers’s two accomplices relatively swiftly. Though he was a suspect early on, it took two years to secure Ayers’s arrest thanks to DNA evidence found on a latex glove he had used and left in the car he stole.
Ayers tendered an open plea to eight felony counts of burglary, one count of grand theft, and one count of armed burglary, punishable by life in prison. An open plea left it to the judge to set the sentence. Nichols went with the sentencing guidelines, which scored Ayers at a minimum of 86.55 months in prison. He was also ordered to pay $1,840 in restitution.
De’Omonte Baker, also 19 at the time, pleaded and was sentenced in June 2023 to two and a half years in prison and 10 years on probation. He completed his prison term in November 2024 and is serving probation, living in Jacksonville. Antwan Jermaine Graham, 15 at the time of the crimes, was not directly involved in most of the burglaries because he had to attend school, but was charged as a principal, and was described as an “arms dealer” by Palatka police. He pleaded and was sentenced to four years in prison. He was released on March 1 and is on probation until 2036, living in Daytona Beach.
The crime spree took place between April 24 and 29, 2022. A homeowner on Casper Drive had left her Ford pickup truck unlocked overnight, losing about $10 from the center console. A homeowner on Pine Hurst Lane had left her purse in her car and forgotten to lock it. The thieves took a set of AirPods, three credit cards and identification documents including her Social Security card and her marriage license.
On London Drive a Glock handgun was stolen out of one unlocked vehicle, and cash and credit cards were stolen out of another. Those credit cards triggered illegal uses at gas stations and three Dollar General stores in Hastings and Palatka. Credit cards were also stolen from a car on Leaver Drive, where, as in a few other crime scenes, surveillance video captured the thieves driving a white car.
The sheriff’s Real Time Crime Center identified the car as a 2017 Nissan Altima, and captured images of its license plate. The same car was captured in surveillance video at the stores where the stolen credit cards were used.
On it went with additional burglaries on Edge Lane, Edgewater Drive, Evansville Lane, leading to a traffic stop of the Nissan Altima when Baker was at the wheel. He told deputies that he and “Feezy” burglarized between 50 and 100 vehicles in Palm Coast’s various sections, though only a fraction of those were reported, and that they’d stolen a 2021 Ford Explorer. Baker identified Graham as the holder of the firearm. Police recovered it from Grahams’s house.
The latex glove that Ayers had worn was left in the Ford Explorer. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s DNA analysis was completed at the end of January 2025, leading to Ayers’s arrest. Ayers, a resident of Palatka, was booked at the county jail Tuesday afternoon after his sentencing. He is awaiting a transfer to the state prison system.
Land of no turn signals says says
His future looks bright.
Skibum says
It continues to amaze me how so many people are so careless, not only leaving their cars unlocked in residential areas but unlocked with a loaded gun or other valuables inside?! You might as well put a bright red flag hanging out of the window with the words “PLEASE STEAL FROM ME”.
These types of crimes are crimes of opportunity. Thieves always look for the easy pickings because they are lazy and want a quick reward for little to no effort. If people would just take a minute to ensure their valuables are not left in their cars and they lock the car when getting out, the chance of them becoming a crime victim is drastically reduced. Not taking those simple precautions increases the level of crime not only for yourself but for the entire community you live in.
I have no sympathy for the dregs of society who prey on others. But to a certain extent, dumb people who don’t take simple security precautions as seriously as they should are in reality being enablers for the criminals who are out there, just waiting for the opportunity to steal whatever they can get their grubby hands on. Don’t become one of their victims! If you are unsure of what precautions you should take to protect your car and home, call the sheriff’s office and ask them to send one of their crime prevention specialists out to your house to do a security inspection and give you recommendations on the things you can do to better protect yourself from becoming a crime victim.
Nick Girz says
I remember living next to this gentleman. I beleive it was In the N section if I remember correctly.
R.S. says
It’s always challenging and easily ridiculed when one writes in defense of a culprit in a society that can only think of different degrees of pain-inflicting punishment to re-educate someone who has committed a crime, a society who thinks of people as bad and does not even begin to reevaluate the systems it uses to govern itself as ever being flawed. According to data from the US BLS, in February 2026, black unemployment rate was 7.7%, white unemployment rate was 3.7%, and Asian unemployment rate was 4.8%. Also, the unemployment rate of Hispanics of all racial backgrounds was 5.2%. What options does a young Black person have in this society? Add to that the undeniable difference in Black vs. White income: The median household income for Black Americans is $52,860 and for Hispanic Americans is $57,981 — compared to $77,999 for White non-Hispanic households and $104,646 for Asian Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. Add to that the impetuousness of youth in light of the ever-present temptations through media advertisements that permeate all life in the US. Consider also that youth unemployment rates are high relative to the overall rate, but the Black youth rate has been roughly twice the white youth rate from 2007 to today. And can one then not generate a little bit of understanding for the young person who battles against the oppressive forces of diminished opportunity? If only our jails could be centers of learning with a possibility of a returning citizen’s being placed into an employment track that would pay enough for self-respect and upward mobility! However, the struggle continues after jail because we give no assistance to people who return into society. Our recidivism rate is at 70 percent. And all it would take is a bit of learning from other countries’ approach to criminal justice. Case in point: Norway with a recidivism rate of a mere 20 percent. The main problem is not the occasional youngster’s impatience; the problem is the society’s judgmental, non-forgiving blame and shame culture as well as the understated racism that permeates all of this society.