A Village of Chitty Chatty man accused of peeping in a public restroom wants a charge of voyeurism thrown out on a technicality.
Ronald Jeffrey Bunt, 64, was arrested Nov. 10 at his home at 5038 Sander St. on a felony charge of voyeurism. Sumter County sheriff’s deputies had been searching for a man who had gone to Lowe’s Home Improvement on U.S. Hwy. 441 in Lady Lake on Sept. 23 and attempted to use his phone to video a man using an adjacent stall in a restroom.
Bunt has retained attorney Gail Grossman, who earlier this month filed a motion to dismiss the case.
She contends that when her client was charged, the language was commingled from Florida Statutes “whereas it gives the state five ways to satisfy one of the elements: observes, photographs, films, videotapes, or records. Under the current version of the statute, the state must prove only observes.”
For that reason, the case should be dismissed, Grossman wrote in the motion.
“Accordingly, the Defendant is entitled to have this charge dismissed since the language on the charging document does not track the statutory language because the information charges the Defendant using factors that are no longer part of the statute,” wrote Grossman, a resident of The Villages.
Bunt had previously been charged with peeping into the window of a man’s apartment in Virginia, and admitted to police that he drove there specifically to peep into windows because they were “garden” or ground-level apartments, according to an arrest report from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. He was convicted of peeping into an apartment window.
Bunt was in the news in 2016 when he was first in line for a book signing at Barnes and Noble in The Villages for Toni Tennille of Captain and Tennille fame. He took the songstress a bouquet of flowers. At the time, he was living on Cokesbury Drive in the Village of Caroline. He sold that home this past July for $415,000 and moved to a home in the Village of Chitty Chatty, which was purchased for $447,100.
The New Jersey native remains fee on $2,000 bond.
