An Ocala woman found herself behind bars last week after a nasty battle about money with her scratched-up man friend shortly after he was laid off.
Marion County sheriff’s deputies were called to a residence on SW 166th Court Rd. shortly after 4 a.m. and when they arrived, they heard a loud argument coming from the west side of the property by a wooded area. As deputies approached the woodline, 21-year-old Krista Ann Palazzo came out from behind some brush. When asked what had happened, she uttered, “I don’t know but I’m the one who needs to go to jail because I just choked and him hit,” a sheriff’s office report states.
The report notes that Palazzo appeared to be emotional and “slightly intoxicated.” But she agreed to sit on a nearby porch and “calm down” while deputies conducted their investigation.
The victim, who was found hiding in the brush, told deputies that he had just gotten laid off “so he decided to drink when he got home.” He said he and Palazzo had been arguing all day about finances and it became more intense when she realized he still had the keys to her vehicle. He claimed Palazzo choked him to the point where “he thought he was going to die,” the report says, noting that the man had “multiple scratches and a slight red mark on his neck.”
As deputies approached Palazzo to speak with her, her mother came out and asked if she wanted to see a person whose name was redacted from the report before she went anywhere. Palazzo then became “emotionally unstable” and started screaming at her mother. She was escorted to a patrol vehicle and once inside she “continued to be very hostile,” the report says.
Palazzo was placed under arrest and transported to the Marion County Jail, where she was charged with domestic battery by strangulation. She was being held on no bond and is due in court Feb. 18 at 9 a.m. to answer to the charge.
Palazzo is no stranger to the Marion County legal system, having been arrested twice last year. On May 24, she was charged with battery. Just 16 days earlier she had been detained with no bond on a possession of cannabis charge.