A Villager has been sentenced to 30 days in jail after he failed to complete DUI school.
Daniel Lee Messerschmidt, 66, of the Village of Bonita, was sentenced last week in Sumter County Court after pleading no contest to a charge of driving while license suspended. He completed the 30-day sentence on Friday at the Sumter County Detention Center where he had been lodged since April 29.
During a traffic stop that day, a Wildwood police officer confirmed that Messerschmidt’s license had been indefinitely canceled on April 19 for failure to complete DUI school.
Messerschmidt had been ordered to complete DUI school after he was involved in an accident in the wee hours Dec. 17 on Morse Boulevard, south of Bonita Boulevard, according to an arrest report from the Florida Highway Patrol. When a trooper went to interview Messerschmidt at the emergency room, it appeared as if he had been drinking. He failed field sobriety exercises and provided breath samples that registered .105 and .100 blood alcohol content.
Earlier this year, Messerschmidt, a former resident of the Village of Poinciana, was sentenced in a child mentoring case in which he apparently developed an infatuation on the mother of the child he was supposed to be mentoring through the Dads for a Day program. When she rebuffed the then-married Villager, the woman came home and her found clothes had been scattered on the back steps of her residence. Her iMac computer was on the floor of the kitchen with the screen shattered, the arrest report said. Messerschmidt was ordered to seek mental health counseling, placed on probation for three years and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.
As a result of the latest driving while license suspended arrest, Messerschmidt was rebooked Friday at the Marion County Jail as the arrest was considered a violation of his probation in the child mentoring. He continues to be held without bond.
