A man once tied to a notorious drug house in The Villages has landed back behind bars.
Mark Frederick Wagner, 45, was being held without bond at the Sumter County Detention Center following his arrest Tuesday on a probation violation.
Wagner is known in The Villages for his link to a problematic Village of Palo Alto house where five people were arrested. He wasn’t at the house when the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office’s SWAT team arrived in the early morning hours of June 21, 2017, but golf cart parts and drugs were found in the home. And it was believed that the residence was possibly being used as a golf cart “chop shop,” a sheriff’s office report stated.
Wagner had appeared at a packed-house Community Development District 1 Board of Supervisors meeting just days earlier when residents said they were fed up with the trash and suspicious activity at the house at 1902 Antonia Place in the Village of Palo Alto.
At the meeting, Wagner claimed he no longer lived in the home but was representing his uncle, Tom Dugan, who owned the home. He identified himself as “the problem child” who had lived at the property and told the audience full of Villagers, “I’m gone,” while also asking for compassion for Dugan and promising that the property would be cleaned up.
In 2014, Wagner was one of three people arrested on the Historic Side of The Villages after complaints from residents about illegal activity. He was taken into custody on charges of possession of a weapon or ammo by a convicted felon, possession of drug paraphernalia and violation of probation on a charge of possession of illegal weapons.
