A Village of Tall Trees couple’s son was acquitted by a jury last week in a case in which he had been accused of stalking.
Stephen Charles Cranmer Jr., 38, had been arrested April 3 after a Sumter County sheriff’s detective went to the family’s home at 2175 Tall Trees Lane and showed Cranmer’s father surveillance images of his son captured Feb. 17 at the Wal-Mart at Buffalo Ridge Plaza in The Villages. The father confirmed it was his son and also confirmed his son uses his mother’s credit card to purchase items and that day used the credit card to purchase liquor at Wal-Mart.
A woman reported she had been at the store on Feb. 17 when a man began following her around. The man kept “looking at her and smiling,” making her uncomfortable, according to an arrest report from the sheriff’s office.
When she was alone in the bread aisle, he touched her between the buttocks and the legs.
“She turned around to confront him and he smiled at her,” the report said.
He quickly left the area, but stopped in the adjoining liquor store to buy beer.
On video surveillance, the man appeared to spot the woman speaking to deputies and slipped off a long-sleeved overshirt he was wearing. He stuck the shirt in a pallet. Cranmer left the store in a silver four-door car registered in his father’s name.
Cranmer’s attorney, Jaimie Washo Spivey, was successful in getting the stalking charge dismissed.
That left a misdemeanor charge of battery for the jury to decide. This past Thursday in Sumter County Court, the jury voted to acquit Cranmer.
