The F-Section house fire itself, and the crimes that led to former Palm Coast resident Vitaly Tsabak’s 20-year prison sentence, are over five years old. Today, the Fifth District Court of Appeal rejected the latest of several attempts by Tsabak to contest his conviction. The court in a one-line ruling affirmed Circuit Judge Terence Perkins’s ruling in November 2020 rejecting Tsabak’s claim that he had received ineffective counsel from his attorney, Aaron Delgado of Daytona Beach. The decision leaves Tsabak with no option but to serve the remaining years of his sentence. He is not due to be released until 2035.
Thanks in part to DNA evidence, Tsabak was 28 and the bearer of a lengthy prison record, felony convictions and prison stints when he was arrested on charges of first-degree arson, burglary, grand theft and possession of burglary tools in November 2016.
Firefighters were immediately suspicious of the Fenimore Lane duplex fire, which had obvious marks of intentional ignition on a living room futon and kitchen. The occupant of the residence, a teacher, was not home when the fire started. He’d stolen her computer, among other items that connected him to the theft and that were found in his car. He was passed out, drunk, when cops found him at the wheel of his car. He faced up to life in prison if convicted. (“His exposure was astronomical,” Delgado said in court at a hearing last year. “There was not a lot of weaknesses in the State’s case.”)
A year and a half later Tsabak, who had acknowledged in a letter how difficult it would be to overcome the DNA evidence, pleaded. The arson charge was downgraded to grand theft and the burglary charge lowered to a second degree felony. Delgado had asked for 15 years. Tsabak got 20. He is to serve 10 years on probation once released. Because he was sentenced as a prison-release reoffender, he had to serve his sentence day for day, meaning no “gain time”–no early release for good behavior. “The entire case was then formed by the PRR status. (See: “Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison, F-Section Arsonist Leaves Judge Craig Puzzled By ‘Senselessness’.”
He appealed. The Fifth District affirmed the conviction. In June 2020, Tsabak appealed on grounds that his counsel was ineffective–and opted to argue the case himself. “I’m still learning on the fly as we go,” he told Perkins at a hearing on the appeal last March. He argued that confessions he provided sheriff’s deputies should have been suppressed, and that the consequences of his status as a prison release reoffender had not been explained to him.
Perkins explained to him that even if he were to prevail by getting his re-offender status revoked, the conviction would still stand, the state could withdraw its earlier plea deal and the court could impose life in prison. Despite the warning, Tsabak opted to continue with his argument.
Perkins didn’t grant Tsabak’s motion, and stressed the effectiveness of his defense counsel. “I think, frankly, the State was looking for an excuse to revoke the offer,” Perkins said. “Mr. Delgado craftily did not give them such an excuse, and they were forced to honor the offer that I’m sure that they regretted making.” He described the plea deal as extremely favorable” to Tsabak.
That’s the decision the Fifth District affirmed today.
Concerned PC resident says
I’ve followed this story unfold from the very beginning. This guy should never see the face of day. He’s a sociopath who has very good social skills and is therefore liked by a lot of people. Don’t let it fool you though. Vitaly is a confidence trickster and has become pretty good at it. Since that’s the only thing he’s good at. Growing up in PC I’ve seen this guy at some parties and he was always the one who supplied people the drugs. On one occasion he also told several people that he had killed in the past. A drug deal gone wrong when he lived in NY. He’s literally a trash person. People beware of this individual and don’t ever let him near you or your loved ones. Vitality’s picture should be in the dictionary right next to Cancer. He used to drug girls in palm coast and then sell them for sexual favors to anyone who was willing to pay. He’s a career criminal. I’m surprised he had a lot of cops in palm coast fooled as well who seemed to take his side on a couple of occasions. That should teach pc authorizes that their personal opinions should be left at home where they belong. Vitaly has evaded dozens of felonies in palm coast by having manipulated several law enforcement officers who took a liking to him.
Ray W. says
Another lawyer doing competent work on behalf of his client and later being attacked for his efforts.
And then there is the decades old story told by an excellent Daytona Beach attorney. On the morning of jury selection, the State announced its nolle prosequi of the charge. The attorney told his client that the case had been won. According to the attorney, several weeks later, he received notice from the Florida Bar that his former client, upset that the State had dropped the charge, had filed a Bar complaint against him alleging that he should have persuaded the State to take the case to trial. The former client wanted a verdict form with a not guilty checkmark on it from a jury; he was unhappy with the dropped charge.
Another Daytona Beach attorney told of implementing a particular strategy during a first-degree murder trial. The client’s family was upset with the attorney’s strategy, because they had recommended prior to trial that he utilize a different strategy. While the jury was out deliberating, the family members met with another attorney and hired him, complete with giving him a non-refundable retainer, to handle the expected appeal and the next trial. The jury came back with a not guilty verdict.
My best example? A young man faced a PRR sentence of mandatory life on a burglary with a battery charge. The seasoned prosecutor, a former police officer who had graduated from law school after retiring from her agency, was a tough negotiator. After extensive depositions and my developing significant mitigating evidence, particularly from the victim and her family, the prosecutor offered an aggravated assault charge with a five-year prison sentence. The client loudly verbally attacked me at the jail on two different occasions, prompting a rapid response by corrections personnel each time. He then accepted the plea offer. After he served his five years, he unexpectedly appeared in my office and asked if I remembered him. I stated that I did. He then apologized to me and told me that when he first arrived at his prison after completing his orientation term at a reception center, he complained to everyone who would listen about what a bad attorney I had been. He said that every one of his fellow inmates, upon finding out the original charges, and his mandatory sentencing situation, immediately told him how stupid he was and that I was a great attorney. He said he soon stopped complaining about me and started listening to his peers. After a while, he decided that one of the first things he would do when he got out would be to apologize to me in person.
Anyone who has read my comments is by now familiar with my oft-repeated assertion that everyone has the right to wander through life fooling himself. To paraphrase Wittgenstein, one of the most difficult things in life is to not fool oneself.
Over and over again, I read FlaglerLive comments posted by the same people, in which they assert not only that they know what is going on in the court system, but that they know of a better solution to the case at issue than do the people who are actually involved in resolving it. Many of them claim that Judge Perkins is soft on crime (he is not). Kill them all, some claim. Others actually believe that ever longer and longer sentences will deter criminal conduct, despite several hundred years of precedent proving otherwise. These commenters repeatedly present to others that they have little clue about what is really happening in the cases that draw their ire. In reality, they present as people who are wandering through life fooling themselves, only they just can’t see it.
As an aside, the best (worst?) story of all is the decades old story of an assistant public defender who endured head trauma in an accident and was subjected to an induced coma while hospitalized. A secretary let slip during a client call that the attorney was in the hospital. When the attorney regained consciousness, the first thing he saw was his client sitting on a chair next to his hospital bed. The first thing he heard was the client asking him what was going on in the client’s case. There are significant numbers of clueless people among us.
All of those FlaglerLive commenters who present themselves as clueless observers of the court system, please start exercising a greater level of intellectual rigor before you begin typing some of the things you apparently believe about the court system that are simply not true. For decades, Flagler County has enjoyed tempered and patient justice meted out by some excellent judges. I can’t recall many actions by Flagler County judges that come close to rivalling the most vengeful forms of judgment that I have seen exhibited by some judges who preside in other circuits, though I acknowledge that every once in a while, the wheels do fall off in Flagler County courtrooms, though not for long. All of you need to give thanks for the justice system you have enjoyed in this county for so many years.