Twenty-four-year-old Matthew William Freeman, jailed in Lake County 11 times since 2004 on numerous violent felony charges, is in the Flagler County jail since Monday evening on charges of kidnapping, conspiracy and aggravated assault with a firearm. His detention, on $60,000 bond, dates back to an incident on Bimini Lane, off State Road 100 just west of County Road 305, on March 3.
That day, according to a Flagler County Sheriff’s Office report, Freeman allegedly conspired with Steven Michael Bell to steal money and a car from Anthony Sorrentino. By the time they were done, they’d allegedly stolen $806 and a rust-color Kia Rio from Sorrenino before being arrested by a Lake County Sheriff’s deputy a short time later and booked into Lake County jail.
Bell, the Sheriff’s report states, pistol-whipped Sorrentino on the head, stuck a .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol in Sorrentino’s mouth and threatened him repeatedly that he’d be shot. Freeman, the report states, tied up Sorrentino with electrical wires and a torn blanket.
Freeman tied the “victim’s hands so tight it caused victim’s hands to lose circulation and turn blue in color,” the report states.
Allegedly, Freeman needed the money he stole from Sorrentino to pay a bondsman. At the time, Freeman had bonded out of Lake County jail on Feb. 20 after a Feb. 14 arrest on aggravated assault, strangulation and kidnapping charges. His bond that time was set at $60,000. Five days earlier he’d been booked into jail for failing to pay child support. A year earlier, he was jailed on burglary and aggravated assault charges days after bonding out of a drunk and disorderly charge and a criminal mischief charge. That takes the record back merely to February 2008.
Leading up to the violent incidents of March 3rd this year, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office report states, Freeman had talked to Sorentino about staging a robbery. Freeman would take $1,000 from Sorrentino, Sorrentino would report the money stolen. Sorrentino never agreed to the arrangement. As a result, he was allegedly assaulted, tied up and left in his home as Freeman and Steven Bell took his car. The two men threw the automatic pistol from the car as they drove before they were arrested in Lake County. Authorities recovered the pistol.
The sheriff’s report notes that a background check on Freeman revealed “multiple arrests for aggravated battery, aggravated assault, burglary, failure to appear.” He was transferred from the Lake County jail on Monday to face his first court appearance in Flagler County this week. He will presumably be shuttled back to Lake County to comply with court appearances there.
Atilla says
My mother taught me, that if i do not have anything good to say to not say anything. So I erased what I was going to post and gave this life lesson instead.
elaygee says
Death penalty or life without parole would save us all a lot of heartache and probably the lives of his future victims.