A Villager known as “Pickleball Billy” has been jailed without bond after a second arrest.
William Leonard Hartig, 78, who has become well known as a USA Pickleball ambassador in The Villages, was booked Monday at the Sumter County Detention Center after violating the terms of his bond from an earlier arrest on two counts of trespassing.
He had been released from jail on March 7.
The Massachusetts native was caught on surveillance on Oct. 17 and Nov. 27 crossing onto a neighbor’s property in the Hallandale Villas in the Village of St. Charles, according to arrest reports from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. Hartig had been formally banned by a trespass order in April from the property of the neighbor, a man in his 70s.
The arrest report indicated the man had put up little flags in his yard to show the exact location of the property line.
The information was sent to the state attorney’s office, which issued the warrants for Hartig’s original arrest.