A Leesburg man was arrested early Tuesday morning after an investigation by Lake County Sheriff’s Office Detectives of an Oct. 28 shooting incident.
Deputies had been called to a Layton Street residence when a man reported that he had been threatened and shot at by a man driving a black Dodge Ram truck. The victim told the deputies that he had been riding his bicycle on his way home when a black truck began to follow closely behind him. The truck passed him as he approached his home. He noticed that the truck had stopped with its headlights pointed toward him. As he arrived home the truck accelerated toward him. As the truck came to a stop, the driver shouted to the victim, “Do you want to die tonight?,” according to the affidavit of probable cause. The driver waved a gun at the victim and fired one round at him which struck his car, which was parked in the driveway. The victim ran into his house and called 911. The case was then assigned to sheriff’s detectives.
The victim found a projectile in his car the next day. He was able to give a description of the shooter to the detectives. Based on that information they focused their investigation on 49-year-old Charles Fueri. They created a photo lineup which include Fueri’s picture. The victim was unable to pick out Fueri from the lineup. Detectives were able to determine that Fueri lived on Layton Street not far from the victim and that he drives a black Ram vehicle. But without a positive identification of the shooter the detectives were stymied.
A break in the case came on Sunday when a deputy received a tip from a Fueri’s neighbor who said that Fueri had fired his .357-caliber revolver at a man down the street. Fueri said he did that because the man looked over his fence into vehicles that night. The neighbor also provided the deputies with ring camera footage which showed the victim riding his bike down the street being closely followed by the Dodge Ram. Shortly after the Ram passed out of the camera’s frame, it recorded the sound of a shot being fired and the distinctive sound of the Dodge Ram driving away. With the additional information the detectives obtained an arrest warrant which was served on Fueri at 3:43 a.m. Tuesday. He was booked at the Lake County Jail and is facing charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, discharging a firearm in public from a vehicle within 1,000 feet of a person, and shooting into an unoccupied vehicle. Bond was set at $13,000.
