A Villager was arrested after allegedly attacking a live-in lady friend who wanted to take a shower.
Fruitland Park police were called at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday to a home at 831 Pisano Way in the Village of Pine Ridge. A woman who had been drinking with 73-year-old John Francis Bessette went to take a shower and was cornered by Bessette. He grabbed both her wrists and struck her in the head with his hands, according to an arrest report. When police arrived, she had fresh bruises above her left eye, on her cheek and on her nose as well as a cut on her left wrist where her watch had broken her skin.
Police had been at the home an hour earlier because the couple was quarreling.
Bessette was verbally aggressive with police officers, repeatedly telling them to “get out of his house,” the report said.
Bessette was arrested on a charge of battery on a person over the age of 65. He was booked at the Lake County Jail on $2,000 bond.
In 2016, Bessette was placed on one year of probation and ordered to perform 25 hours of community service after an incident in which a woman was pushed from his golf cart in The Villages.
