A chef at a restaurant in The Villages has been sentenced to 10 days in jail in connection with a New Year’s Day arrest.
Austin Tyler Kennedy, 28, of Fruitland Park was sentenced Friday in Lake County Court after pleading no contest to charges of resisting arrest and driving without a valid license.
He had been driving a gold Chevy sedan on New Year’s Day in Fruitland Park when a Lake County sheriff’s deputy ran his license plate. Kennedy bolted from the vehicle and took off running, later admitting he had done so because he was driving without a license. He was arrested after a foot chase.
He continues to face felony charges of battery by strangulation and false imprisonment in connection with an arrest in April. At the time of that arrest, Kennedy indicated he was working as a chef at the FarmShed restaurant at Spanish Springs. He was taken into custody after a woman sought medical treatment at the emergency room at AdventHealth in Ocala.
Kennedy had been arrested in 2016 while he staying with his grandmother in the April Hills subdivision in Lady Lake. Kennedy went into his grandmother’s bedroom, woke her up and demanded a phone charger, according to an arrest report from the Lady Lake Police Department. When she refused, Kennedy punched a hole in the wall. When she attempted to call 911, he slapped the phone out of her hand.