A Villages resident with an extensive criminal history was arrested Tuesday morning after a woman told Marion County sheriff’s deputies a frightening story of being threatened with a gun and choked to the point of being dizzy before escaping and hiding in a neighbor’s garden.
Deputies responded to a home on Belhaven Loop in the Village of Calumet Grove shortly before 7 a.m. after a man called to report a woman banging on his door begging for help. The man told deputies the woman claimed a man was chasing her with a gun, the sheriff’s office report states.
When deputies arrived, they found the woman running on a nearby golf cart path, crying and afraid. She told them that 46-year-old Jeffrey Joseph Dolence “had beaten her throughout the night” before she was able to escape from his vehicle and hide in the neighbor’s garden, the report says.
The woman said Dolence earlier had driven her to a residence in Pedro and told her to stay in the vehicle. She said he then held a silver 9mm handgun to her head and “told her he was going to kill her tonight,” the report says.
The woman said Dolence left the vehicle for a short period of time to talk with people at the residence, then returned and told her he loved her. But he soon became angry because she was crying and started punching her in the head, the report says, adding that Dolence then “grabbed her by the throat and choked her to the point where she could not breathe and began feeling dizzy.”
The woman said Dolence then drove her to his parents’ house in the Village of Calumet Grove at 17345 SE 80th Biltmore Ave. – the same home address listed for him on the report – where he said he was going to “smoke a bubble” of methamphetamine. The woman said she waited until he started smoking and then fled the vehicle, eventually hiding in the nearby garden as Dolence drove around the neighborhood looking for her. She added that she ran to the house on Belhaven Loop and sought help after Dolence drove past her.
Deputies noted that the woman had a large knot above her left ear, so they called Marion County Fire Rescue to the scene to provide treatment, the report says.
Deputies then went to Dolence’s parents’ house and took him into custody. He denied the woman’s claims and was transported to the Marion County Jail, where he was charged with domestic battery by strangulation and held with no bond.
At the jail, Dolence also was charged with three counts of burglary of an unoccupied structure (unarmed), two counts of petit theft (second degree, third or subsequent offense) and larceny/grand theft (between $300 and $5,000). He was held on $26,000 bond on those charges, which are in connection with two burglaries that took place in Summerfield in July.
In those cases, a window-unit air conditioner, a tote bag full of knickknacks, a large Santa Claus still in a box and a variety of woodworking tools were taken from homes on U.S. Hwy. 301 and Hwy. 475, a report says.
In July, a large table saw taken from the Hwy. 475 home was recovered from a home on County Road 230 in Oxford and a witness told deputies she saw other tools stored in the garage of Dolence’s parent’s home, a report says.
Dolence is no stranger to the tri-county legal system, having served time in Marion, Sumter and Lake counties 12 times since 2013. He also has multiple convictions for theft, including July 2017 in Marion County and July 2014 in Lake County.
In May, Dolence was arrested by Sumter County sheriff’s deputies after allegedly burglarizing a vehicle in Oxford Oaks. And in March, Marion County sheriff’s deputies arrested him after a woman claimed he threatened her with a gun.
