Leroy Sampson Jr, Repeat Offender on Probation, Arrested After 2-Hour Stand-Off With Deputies

He’s faced dozens of charges since and nearly as many arrests and numerous convictions that included two state prison stints totaling five years on drug charges and a charge of fleeing police.

More recently, Sampson, now 33, pleaded guilty to cocaine possession. and before that pleaded guilty to battery and resisting an officer, for which he pleaded to six months in jail and two years on probation. He’d already violated his probation once. On Wednesday, he violated it again, causing both those recent cases to reopen, and making him susceptible to serving out his probation in prison, in addition to whatever disposition, if any, may be the outcome of yesterday’s incident.

He was fleeing police again Wednesday afternoon when he allegedly broke into the apartment of someone he knows in Palm Coast’s Town center and barricaded himself in there for over two hours as Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies attempted to coax him out, since he had several warrants for his arrest from yet more prior incidents.




He did not initially surrender. Rather, after getting consent from L.G., the renter of the third-floor Central landings apartment, and with a key she had provided, deputies attempted entry but were initially foiled by the couch Sampson had placed behind the door.

“Forced entry was attempted into the residence with the door being broken off from the bottom hinge,” Sampson’s arrest report states. Sampson “then began yelling to law enforcement that he would come out peacefully and surrender.” He was unable to open the front door, so the door was broken off from the top hinge. Sampson gave in at 6:30 p.m. and was arrested on the outstanding warrants, plus two new charges: burglary, a second degree felony, and resisting arrest.

Traffic on Central Avenue in Town Center was not impeded during the incident, though several units of the Sheriff’s Office were arrayed along the avenue.

Detectives had gone to the apartment complex to arrest him earlier with five felony warrants in hand (four from Flagler, one from Volusia). They saw him there just before he ran to the third floor, entering an apartment whose door had been left open. L.G. told law enforcement she had left the door open because she was taking things down to her car.




Sampson’s warrant from Volusia is on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, battery, burglary with battery and a violation of an injunction following a domestic assault incident. In Flagler, he was wanted on a warrant stemming from a May incident in Palm Coast’s W-Section when he allegedly got enraged at a woman who brought up an alleged prior sexual assault against her, by him. He proceeded to strike her “at least five times in her face and head with an open hand and poured a Red Bull energy drink on her head,” according to his arrest report. He had last been convicted of batter in Volusia in 2017. The repeat offense resulted in a felony battery charge.

A sheriff’s release states Sampson “resides in an apartment at the Central Landings at Town Center Apartments,” but not in the apartment in which he barricaded himself. If he was–the Sheriff’s Office had not verified the claim by the time this article initially published, saying the claim was based on a witness’ claim at the scene–it would have been for a very brief time.

His jail booking lists his address as 8 Rosepetal Lane in Palm Coast’s R Section, as does an arrest report as recent as May 27. His warrant information, according to one of his charging affidavits Wednesday, lists his last residential address as 175 Interchange Boulevard in Ormond Beach (a Baymont Inn motel), as does his February probation violation report, though one of his violations was for checking out of that motel without permission. The violation report also notes that Sampson “has been struggling to secure a stable residence since his release from [jail] ion November 2021.”

Town center apartments are at times blamed for bringing crime. The claim, trotted out at zoning or land use hearings in Palm Coast and, more recently, by a Palm Coast City Council member, is based on prejudice or stereotype, and is false: a scan of the last 12 months’ jail bookings, for example, reveals that precisely one individual who lives at the Sunset Boulevard apartments has been arrested–on a driving misdemeanor. In that span, the sheriff’s Office on two occasions referred to the area of Sunset Boulevard as the scene of alleged crimes, but not by people living there.




Sampson’s current probation is not set to expire before November 2, 2023. He’s now being held at the Flagler County jail on no bond regarding the probation violations, and on $28,500 bond for the burglary, resisting and battery with prior convictions charges. Because of his prior record, if Sampson is convicted on either of the felony charges, and on the probation violations, it is much more likely than not that he will face prison time rather than mere jail time.

“His actions caused a large response and concern to the community but that didn’t work out too well for him,” Sheriff Rick Staly was quoted as saying in a release. “It’s now time for the courts to hold him accountable and send him away to prison for a long time.”