A Belleview woman with an extensive criminal record was arrested last week after a man woke up and discovered that she and his vehicle were missing.
When a Marion County sheriff’s deputy spoke to the man by phone on Dec. 19, he said that he and 35-year-old Tonya Leigh Femia had returned to his residence around 3 a.m. that day after “spending some time at the local fish games.” He said he fell asleep for about an hour and when he awoke, he realized that Femia had left his residence and his gold 1999 Pontiac Bonneville was missing, a sheriff’s office report states, adding that the keys to the vehicle were no longer on his living room table.
The man said he contacted Femia via Facebook Messenger and she told him she “got spooked” because there was someone in the yard and she couldn’t wake him up. After that conversation, the man said, Femia blocked him from her Facebook page and he hadn’t heard from her since.
This past Thursday, a sheriff’s detective located the missing vehicle at a residence in the 16900 block of East Fort King Street. A deputy responded to the address and spoke with two men, one of whom said he purchased the vehicle from Femia for $500. The man said she provided him with a bill of sale and title. He didn’t have the bill of sale with him but the man did show the deputy the title document he was given, the report says.
A short time later, the deputy located Femia at a residence at 1555 NE 169th Ct. After being read her rights, Femia denied having anything to do with the vehicle but stated she did ride in the car after it was “supposedly stolen.”
Femia, who lives at 7894 SE County Road 25 in Belleview, was transported to the Marion County Jail and charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle and dealing in stolen property. She was released Friday on $4,000 bond and is due to appear in a Marion County courtroom on Jan. 29 at 9 a.m. to answer to the charges.
Femia is no stranger to the Marion County legal system. She’s been held in the county jail 16 times since March 2004 on a litany of charges. And she’s served four different sentences in the Florida State Prison System. Those include:
- April 19, 2005-Jan. 22, 2007 (sentenced to two years and two months for grand theft of a motor vehicle, resisting arrest with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer);
- June 12, 2008-April 27, 2009 (sentenced to one year and two months for possession of cocaine);
- Feb. 17, 2011-March 21, 2011 (sentenced to two years for possession of cocaine, obstructing a crime investigation and criminal mischief/property damage); and
- June 20, 2013-March 10, 2014 (sentenced to one year and two months for battery on a law enforcement officer and possession of controlled substances).