A 95-year-old Villager has been sentenced after hitting a fellow resident driving a golf cart and then fleeing the scene.
Elinor Levitt, a resident of Sumter Senior Living, appeared in Marion County Court on Tuesday and pleaded no contest to a charge of leaving the scene of a crash involving injuries. She has been placed on probation for two years and has been ordered to perform 80 hours of community service.
Levitt, a former resident of the Village of Calumet Grove, was at the wheel of a green 2007 Mercury Montego on the afternoon of Dec. 29 when she ran a stop sign and hit a golf cart driven by 81-year-old Nancy Lou Hooper. A Villager witnessed the crash near the Village of Chatham postal station and tried to get Levitt to stop, but the native New Yorker kept going, according to the arrest report from the Florida Highway Patrol, which investigated the accident and eventually tracked down and arrested Levitt.
Hooper, a full-time resident of The Villages since 2007 and a member of the Aqua Rhythms Synchronized Swim Team, had been to the postal station to collect her mail. She was taken to Ocala Regional Medical Center’s ICU having suffered broken legs, broken ribs and blood clots. Friends say it’s been a long and difficult recovery for Hooper.
A gate camera was instrumental in Levitt’s arrest.
Levitt, while still living on Creekside Circle in the Village of Calumet Grove, had been ticketed in 2020 on a charge of careless driving following an accident near the entrance to Del Webb Spruce Creek on U.S. Hwy. 441 in Summerfield. Levitt had been at the wheel of the same green 2007 Mercury Montego that she was driving when she hit Hooper’s golf cart.
This past December, 91-year-old Villager Marilyn Hamilton was sentenced to five years in prison after a 2020 hit-and-run crash that seriously injured two bicyclists who are residents of the Village of Dunedin.
Do you agree with Levitt’s sentence? Share your thoughts in a Letter to the Editor at letters@villages-news.com.
