A Villager who is in prison for shooting up his neighbor lady’s house struck out with an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.
Howard Sparber, 72, who is currently serving a prison sentence, had already lost at the appellate court as he battles his “illegal sentence.” He tried to take his case to the state’s highest court, but it has been dismissed.
He was convicted in 2017 after he armed himself in 2016 with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun and repeatedly fired at the front door of the home of a woman on Landale Loop on whom the married Sparber had developed a crush. She was not home at the time. He had been drinking. She later said her Village of Hadley neighbor had been harassing her with sexual propositions, tried to lure her into a hot tub and had previously pointed a gun at her, all over a span of several months.
He was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to never return to The Villages. He was also ordered to pay more than $5,000 in restitution to the woman with whom he had become infatuated.
During his time in prison, Sparber apparently has become a regular in the prison’s law library.
This past March, in an evidentiary hearing back in Sumter County, the attorney who had represented Sparber in the shooting case testified against Sparber, who claimed he had not been made aware of certain provisions of his sentence.
Sparber will be eligible for release on Nov. 23, 2020. He is currently being held at a medium correction facility in Zephyrhills.
Sparber’s wife divorced him and moved back north.
