A 69-year-old Leesburg man was arrested after he reportedly hit a man with a baseball bat while serving him an eviction notice.
Gregory Leppert, of 32402 Memory Lane, was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon without intent to kill and criminal mischief after the incident, which happened Wednesday morning outside his residence.
The victim told a Lake County sheriff’s deputy that Leppert, who is his landlord, was serving an eviction notice and started shaking his camper extremely hard. The victim said he got up to see what was happening and when he opened the door, he saw Leppert holding a 10-foot PVC pipe in one hand and an aluminum baseball bat in the other, according to the sheriff’s office report.
The victim said he asked Leppert, “What the (expletive deleted) are you going to do with that?” He said Leppert then struck him with the bat on his right wrist. The victim said he went back into the camper and closed the door before Leppert struck the camper door with the bat, causing the screen to rip and putting a large hole in the floor. The victim’s wife then called 911, the report said.
The victim’s wife told the deputy she was sleeping when Leppert started shaking the camper. She said her husband got up to check out what was going on and Leppert confronted him at the door and struck him with the bat. She said she didn’t witness the altercation and only heard it. The victim’s wife said she called 911 after Leppert threatened to burn the camper down, according to the report.
The deputy contacted Leppert by phone and asked him to return to his residence. When he arrived, he said he went to place the eviction notice on the camper when the victim came out and started yelling at him and calling him names. Leppert said he had a 10-foot PVC pipe in his hands but he never struck anybody with anything while he was there, the report said.
The deputy observed some signs of injury to the victim’s hand, including minor redness and swelling. The deputy also observed the damage to the camper door, which was consistent with being hit with a small aluminum baseball bat. However, the bat could not be found at the scene, according to the report.
Leppert was taken to the Lake County Jail, where he bonded out for $10,500 on Wednesday evening. Leppert is due to appear in Lake County Court on Sept. 12.
