- November 17, 2024
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A gas station employee called the Sheriff’s Office from the Kangaroo on Palm Harbor Parkway at about 6:19 Dec. 5 and said a short man with a shaved head and wearing a black leather vest and pants had pointed a gun at a customer.
The witness told dispatch that the man who’d pulled the gun had gotten into a gold minivan and headed west on Frontier Drive.
A deputy patrolling Frontier Drive found the van, called for backup and then stopped the van on Old Kings Road near the intersection with Fleetwood Drive.
Deputies told the van’s occupants — two men — to place their hands out the window. They knew which one had pulled the gun: the car's driver, 39-year-old Daniel Anthony Tomarchio, fit the Kangaroo employee's description.
Surveillance video deputies viewed later showed Tomarchio waiting outside the gas station as another man, 30-year-old Francisco Rosa, made purchases inside. Tomarchio then “pulled out a handgun and pointed it at the side of Francisco’s neck,” with the “barrel of the gun pressed against Francisco’s neck,” according to his arrest report. Tomarchio then put the gun down and the two men began yelling. Witnesses told deputies Tomarchio yelled, “Where’s my (profanity) money” while holding the gun to Rosa’s neck.
During the felony traffic stop, a deputy found black-painted brass knuckles in a pocket of Tomarchio’s leather vest, along with a black handgun "that was deemed to be a BB gun,” according to his arrest report. Rosa later told deputies that he had been in such fear for his life “that he was unable to determine if the gun was real or not.”
But as deputies removed Tomarchio from the van and a line of cars backed up Old Kings Road behind the traffic stop, the van's passenger, 49-year-old Kenneth Lee Depaolis, got out of the rear seat of the van and “laid down on the floor and refused to get up,” according to his arrest report.
One of the deputies pulled out a public address and ordered Depaolis to get up. He did — but then, without being told to, he started backing toward another deputy. Once he was about six feet away, “he pulled his pants down, exposing his sexual organs and buttocks to the numerous vehicles on the roadway and pedestrians that were standing in the area,” the deputy wrote.
The deputy then “escorted him to the ground to place him in handcuffs,” and Depaolis “actively resisted” by kicking at the deputy as he cuffed him and put him in a patrol car. The deputy wrote in the report that he smelled alcohol on Depaolis’ breath, and that Depaolis “made numerous comments that he would find me without my badge on and take care of me.”
Meanwhile, in another patrol car, Tomarchio made a statement to deputies which is redacted in his arrest report but apparently contradicted by witnesses and the Kangaroo’s surveillance video, when “it was discovered that Daniel was actually the person with the gun and Kenneth never had a gun. It was then apparent that Daniel provided false information to law enforcement,” according to his arrest report.
Deputies took Depaolis and Tomarchio, both resident's of Palm Coast's F-section, to the Flagler County jail.
Tomarchio has been charged with robbery armed with a deadly weapon; providing false information to a law enforcement officer; possession of a firearm, ammunition or electric device by a convicted felon and breaching the peace. He was still incarcerated as of the evening of Dec. 8 and is being held on a combined $31,000 bond, according to jail records.
Depaolis is charged with resisting arrest with violence, indecent exposure, disorderly intoxication and battery. He was also still incarcerated as of the evening of Dec. 8, and is being held on a combined $9,500 bond. Depaolis had also been arrested Dec. 2 on a charge of disorderly conduct, according to county jail records.
