A Villager will escape prosecution after agreeing to enter into an alcohol treatment program.
The state attorney’s office has announced that no information will be filed in the case of 63-year-old Gail Beth Iosue of the Village of Dunedin, who had been arrested Feb. 6 on a charge of aggravated assault on a person over the age of 65.
The prosecutor’s office opted not to follow through with the case thanks in large part to Iosue’s husband’s wishes, according to a document on file in Sumter County Court. The couple has been married since 1979.
The Ohio native had been arrested after knocking her husband’s eyeglasses off his face and attempting to kick him in the groin area while battling over a cell phone, according to an arrest report from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. Her husband told deputies that Iosue “had been drinking all night.” It was her second arrest after an attack on her husband at their home in The Villages.
Deputies had been called to the home on Jan. 18, 2021 and were met in the front yard by Iosue’s husband, who said he had been struck in the face by his wife. He had suffered a small laceration above the right side of his upper lip. He signed a waiver indicating he did not want to see her prosecuted. That battery charge was later dismissed after she completed a court-ordered batterer’s intervention class. She not only completed the 29-hour class, she excelled, according to an evaluator’s report on file in Sumter County Court. During the class, she admitted she had “put her spaghetti bowl in her husband’s face,” prompting him to call law enforcement. She had warned him to curb his behavior or she would make him “wear” the spaghetti.
“My husband called the police only to scare me and did not realize that his calling them would result in my being arrested,” Iosue told the evaluator.
Iosue had been counseled to remember “the negative legal and financial consequences” of the 2021 arrest if she found herself losing control of her anger. The evaluator concluded that, “The prognosis for Mrs. Iosue in being able to better handle her anger is very good.”
