Daniel Evans, the 23-year-old man charged with an accomplice in a violent home invasion robbery on Bradmore Lane in Palm Coast 17 months ago, was sentenced today to six years in state prison and 10 years’ probation in a plea deal that dropped the home invasion charge but convicted him on a burglary with assault charge. His victim was Pamela Berdebes, then 67. She was struck in the head and fell to the floor when Evans forced her door open.
Evans’s accomplice and girlfriend, Carisa Hall, 21 at the time of the confrontation, is to be sentenced on Feb. 19. She has also agreed to a plea agreement, pleading no contest to being a principal to burglary with battery. She faces between five and 10 years in state prison and up to a lifetime on probation. Absent the deal, prosecutors told her she’d faced life in prison if the case had gone to trial and she was found guilty.
But her family is contesting the harshness of the deal.
Evans will be required to pay $475 in restitution to Berdebes in addition to $1,120 in fines, court and investigation costs.
The crime took place on Aug. 3, 2014. Hall had once been a roommate of Berdebes’s. She had dated a man called Marquis. Late the evening of Aug. 3, Evans, posing as Marquis, knocked on Berdebes’s door and announced himself as “Marquis.” When Berdebes opened the door to check, he shoved it open, slamming the woman to the ground. He then threatened Berdebes with death if she looked at him.
Evans was on a cell phone, listening to directions from someone who knew where to direct him in the house. It was Hall. Evans even let on to Berdebes that he was on the phone with a woman, telling his victim of his interlocutor, “she said you have pills.” Evans took a purse, some money and pills, then fled. Berbedes’s credit cards were then used repeatedly in quick succession in Ormond Beach, Daytona Beach and South Daytona, where Evans lived.
The third use of a card, in South Daytona, gave Evans and Hall away: they were both visible in surveillance video. They were not able to get money off the card even though Hall knew the pin number. They then went to the place they were sharing, about 0.2 miles from the Kangaroo where they’d last tried getting money off of Berdebes’s cards. That’s where they were arrested by South Daytona police.
Hall’s family has since attempted to contest the terms of the deal, which had been offered to her in exchange of testifying against Evans. Wendy Smith, Hall’s mother, wrote Circuit Judge J. David Walsh last August that Hall had not been in the house at the time of the robbery “other than being the person who got the ball rolling,” and having “bad judgment.”
Smith then describes Hall as a young mother who had just given birth . “This little boy needs his mother and I am not saying she should go unpunished as she knows right from wrong,” Smith pleaded with Walsh, “I am begging the state of Florida to please give her the minimum of 3 years with 1 year probation. With a stipulation to go in and speak with troubled girls” and volunteer in a girls’ shelter every six months, for five years. She described her daughter as a community volunteer in various institutions who plans on being a drug counselor or a beautician.
Evans’s grandmother and sister in law also sent in similarly pleading letters—the sort of pleas made at sentencing that seldom sway a judge very far from sentencing guidelines. In late August last year, Hall herself wrote Walsh. “This got way out of hand and I do take responsibility,” she wrote. Giving birth, she said, and loving her son as she never thought possible, made her “understand how I have hurt my mother and family” (she did not mention the victim).
She added: “I am pleading today pleading for the court[‘s] mercy for a shorter sentence. I ask this not only for myself but for my son. I live with my mother and sick grandmother who moved into my mom’s over a year ago. We three depend on each other, I help my mom while she is at work and I am home and vice versa. They are not capable to care for my son at all. We are three generations of women who really depend on one another, by me leaving I have financially devastated them as well. Judge Walsh please have mercy on me.”
Originally scheduled for today, Hall’s sentencing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Feb. 19.
GoodLord says
It’s funny how she cries for mercy (using her baby as the excuse). Not that she is sorry for what she actually did to the victim.
r&r says
You do the crime you do the time. Maybe the parents should also bne included.
Sandra Reynolds says
The young woman should have considered how her actions would impact her family, as well as the VICTIM. Her punishment does seem harsh but this is our justice system at work.
Rich Mikola says
These criminals are always sorry ‘AFTER’ they get caught. They always have a sob story for the judge. I agree’, do the crime, do the time’.
Lola says
That charge really carries a life sentence ????? That’s crazy when you have people out here that killed other ppl drunk driving and get probation
Scott says
6 years for a VIOLENT HOME INVASION ! Oh wait a minute the PLEA DEAL removed the HOME INVASION charge.
The real problem with the criminal justice system……..DEALS !
Brian says
Anyone else remember back when this kind of stuff didn’t happen around here? It won’t be long until Palm Coast is as ghetto as Orlando and Jacksonville.
Anonymous says
👆 Smh People 😏
Geezer says
Daniel Evans and Carisa Noel Hall didn’t just barge in to that home without
carefully picking a 67-year old woman to victimize. These are cunning (not bright)
and dangerous individuals. These are the types that prey on the weakest of us.
6 years in prison – that’s a bargain.
GT says
We can only hope that the next time this loser kicks in someones door he comes face to face with a pistol and someone that knows how to use it! As for the other one the best thing that could ever happen to her kid is her going to jail for a long time.
Anonymous says
Children are a gift that this woman does not deserve.
Peggy says
One of the girls family stated” She didn’t enter the house”. It doesn’t matter she’s involved she was the mastermind in this. I think they should have gotten a stiffer punishment. I also think she doesn’t deserve that child!! We need stiffer penalties for these crimes. That way these people aren’t back out on the street doing the same thing in two to three years!!
Don Octavio says
They are lucky they did not get shot. There are a lot of armed homeowners in Palm Coast.
Done says
Y’all comment more on this then the damn child molester article a home invasion is more important I guess especially when its black people hell white men always raping and touching little girls and boys so we overlook that
Daniel Evans says
For everyone that has so much to say I was wrongfully accused and had to sit in prison for 6 years or something that I didn’t do Carissa Hall was a liar and manipulator and cheater I wish I would have never met her but Life Goes On I have been home for 4 years now and take good care of my 7-year-old son living my best life so thank you haters I’m still comfortable taking care of my people and my family and pursuing my music career and still being a product of my environment that I have been in my previous younger years so before you judge somebody read the book