Man Who Reported Armed Burglary Is Arrested And Blamed For Running “Drug House”

Update: James Soldo in a September 2018 plea agreement was adjudicated guilty of possession of drug paraphernalia, and adjudication was withheld on a charge of possession of marijuana. The charge of unlawful possession of a controlled substance was dropped. Circuit Judge Terence Perkins sentenced him to probation for a year, which was terminated in April 2019.

A little after 8 this morning, a man rang James Soldo’s doorbell at 15-B Bunker Knolls Lane, then stuck a gun in Soldo’s face. The incident triggered a manhunt and the lock-down of three schools, including Indian Trails Middle and Belle Terre Elementary. (See the story here.)

The alleged assailant got away. But later that morning, Soldo himself was arrested over several charges of possession of marijuana and marijuana products.

“This was a drug house that was robbed. If you deal in drugs then these are the kinds of things that can happen to you,” Sheriff Rick Staly was quoted as saying in a release issued this evening. “If you stay out of the drug business then you’re not likely to experience an armed home invasion. My concern is for the nearby residents as often they become the innocent victims when drug related armed burglaries go bad.”

Soldo, 37, had reported to 911 that a black man had attempted to robbed him before he slammed his door in his face and escaped out his bedroom window. The suspect, according to Soldo, then walked to the back of the house, smashed the rear-sliding glass door, entered the kitchen, and went straight for the freezer, whose door he then left ajar, apparently after taking something from inside. Soldo told deputies that he didn’t think the assailant had taken anything of value from the house.

When detectives arrived at the scene at 9:37 a.m., they smelled a strong odor of marijuana throughout the house. They located the sort of scale often associated with weighing marijuana. There was a small green leafy substance on the scale plate. They determined that the substance on the plate and substance they later assumed had been in the freezer was marijuana.

When they spoke with Soldo, who agreed to speak with them, they concluded that the alleged assailant had taken a large amount of marijuana from the freezer, and that he knew it was there because he’d possibly been someone Soldo had sold marijuana to in the past.

“Detectives,” the arrest report states, “then assured Soldo that the investigation was meant to identify the suspect from the armed burglary and not to implicate him as a cannabis dealer.” They repeated those assurances as they inquired further about marijuana in the house, and in his bedroom. “Go ahead and take a look,” he told them, encouraging them to look around.

At that point, they located a bag with more than 8 grams of marijuana in his bedroom, along with other related items such as a dark brown, sticky, wax-like substance and a glass smoking pipe with the same kind of substance in it.

Soldo was subsequently arrested and booked at the Flagler County jail just before 8 p.m. and held there on $2,500 bond. He had one prior local arrest last year on possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana and possession of cocaine.