Multiple Wildwood police officers responded to a popular Italian restaurant whose founder was charged in a sex trafficking case last month after receiving reports Wednesday of possible foul play at eateries he owns elsewhere in Central Florida.
Wildwood Police Chief Randy Parmer said his department received a courtesy call from the Ocala Police Department after it was discovered that gas lines apparently had been cut at the Chefs of Napoli restaurants in Ocala and Spring Hill. Those two restaurants are owned by Luigi Barile, who was released on $25,000 bond last month in the sex trafficking case involving a teenage girl, and Antonio Cacace, who had his own brush with the law in January 2015.
The Wildwood restaurant is now called Napolinos and no longer carries the Chefs of Napoli name. Barile and Cacace sold it in September 2016 and haven’t been involved with the business since then, though they failed to update the ownership documents on the Florida Division of Corporations website – Sunbiz.org – until May 21, five days after the story of Barile’s arrest broke. In March 2017, both Barile and Cacace, who grew up in Italy together, were told they were no longer welcome in the Wildwood restaurant.
On Wednesday afternoon, Parmer said his officers didn’t find anything unusual at Napolinos or the surrounding businesses. But he said they would be back Thursday morning to check on the restaurant, located at 9807 U.S. 301, and other businesses in the Wildwood Oaks Business Center to make sure nothing unusual was going on.
The Ocala Chefs of Napoli was closed Wednesday afternoon and was being watched over by an Ocala police officer parked in his patrol vehicle outside the front door. He climbed from his cruiser and asked a man who was checking the door of the eatery if he could help him, then confirmed that the restaurant had closed its doors.
The Spring Hill location also was reportedly closed – no one answered the phone at the restaurant at 5 p.m. – and vendors were supposedly attempting to get their equipment out of the building. And there were unconfirmed reports that a burning candle was found inside one of the restaurants where the gas lines were cut.
Barile was one of nine men arrested May 16 in connection with the sex trafficking sting in Hernando County. He was charged with human trafficking, conspiracy to commit human trafficking, unlawful use of a two-way communication device and lewd and lascivious battery on a victim between the ages of 12 and 16 and originally was held on no bond on the human trafficking charge and $650,000 bond on the other charges.
But Barile was released May 23 on $25,000 bond after Judge Daniel B. Merritt Jr. rejected a motion by Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Julie L. Sercus for pretrial detention. The judge found the motion to be “factually insufficient” and ordered that Barile’s bond be drastically reduced from the original amount of $650,000.
Barile’s new bond was set at $10,000 each on two counts of kidnapping/human trafficking and $5,000 on a count of unlawful use of a two-way communication device. On the fourth charge, lewd and lascivious behavior with a victim ages 12 to 16, Merritt ruled there was no probable cause and changed the bond from $100,000 to ROR – released on own recognizance.
The conditions of Barile’s new bond also came with several special conditions, including being placed on a GPS monitor, surrendering his passport, having no contact with the teenage victim and remaining in Hernando County.
Sercus had argued that Barile “poses the threat of harm to the community” and had asked Merritt to consider several factors, including the fact that Barile, who was born in Italy and lives in Spring Hill with his wife and a child, “has the financial means to flee the jurisdiction of this Court.”
Sercus’ failed motion for pretrial detention claims that Barile responded to an internet advertisement for sex with a young teenage girl that was posted by a person acting in a guardian role for her. The motion claims that Barile “negotiated the terms of the commercial sex act” and then traveled to a location where he paid cash to engage in sex acts with the victim.
The motion says that forensic evidence from the teenager’s cell phone revealed that Barile allegedly engaged in the commercial sex acts once at a hotel in Ocala and another time at a residence in Brooksville.
The motion claims that the victim identified Barile from a photo package as the person who brought adult males with him to the Ocala hotel and they engaged in two different types of sex acts with her in exchange for money.
The motion also claims that Barile, who is 6-foot-3-inches tall and weighs 450 pounds, admitted to meeting the teenager over the internet, meeting her at her home and at a hotel in Ocala. And it claims that he admitted to engaging in a sex act with the victim on at least one occasion and “bringing two men with him to the hotel in Ocala to meet the victim for commercial sex.”
Barile, who lives at 3487 Misty View Drive in Spring Hill and is being represented by attorney Lee Michael Pearlman of St. Petersburg, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
At a press conference announcing the arrests that was attended by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis called the case against Barile disturbing.
“Not only did he use the services of our young victim, he also brought at least three of his friends with him,” Nienhuis said. “And all four of these men exchanged money for sex.”
The other eight men arrested in the sweep are:
- Lawrence Edward Kemble, 70, of Ocala, arrested in Marion County (retired postal inspector from Sussex County, N.J.);
- Matthew Christopher Doyle, 39, Spring Hill, arrested in Hernando County (full-time East Lake Fire Rescue lieutenant and a part-time registered nurse at Bayfront Health Brooksville);
- Joseph Andrew Easton, 24, Inverness, arrested in Citrus County;
- Bryan Joseph Giguire, 46, Homosassa, arrested in Citrus County (Southeast Florida regional manager for PowerDMS, a policy management software company);
- James William Hancock, 67, Delray Beach, arrested in Palm Beach County;
- Shawn Christopher Henson, 39, Newberry, arrested in Gilchrist County;
- Latchman Kaladeen, 49, Wesley Chapel, arrested in Pasco County (active ICE detainer); and
- Jason Michael Raulerson, 46, High Springs, arrested in Alachua County.
