A Villager has been jailed without bond after her third drunk driving arrest within a year.
Stacy Duroe Fitzgerald, 61, of the Village of Piedmont, was booked Thursday afternoon at the Marion County Jail on a Sumter County warrant charging her with violating her probation in a drunk driving case from earlier this year. She had been released Wednesday afternoon from the Sumter County Detention Center following her arrest on a charge of driving under the influence after she was found with a carton of merlot in her Yamaha golf cart on El Camino Real. Her most-recent arrest is considered a violation of her previous probation.
In May, she had been placed on probation as the result of her arrest this past January after her vehicle sustained a flat tire and was blocking traffic at Buena Vista Boulevard and Parr Drive. An investigation led to the discovery of vodka bottles in her vehicle. She provided two breath samples that each measured .305 blood alcohol content. She later lost her driver’s license for six months, was placed on probation for one year and was ordered to perform 80 hours of community service.
A second DUI case is still pending in Lake County. In that incident in August 2022, she crashed into a small tree, a carport attached to a residence and a parked car at a home in the 800 block of Sharon Drive on the Historic Side of The Villages. Fitzgerald was “severely intoxicated” and taken to a local hospital rather than being immediately arrested. Tests later showed Fitzgerald had a blood alcohol content level of .380, which the investigator noted was nearly “toxic.” Vodka bottles had been found in her car.
