An Evinston man was jailed Monday morning on multiple charges after Marion County sheriff’s deputies stopped him at gunpoint in the parking lot of the Queen’s Gardens Resort motel.
Deputies responded to the motel, located at 3340 S Pine Ave. in Ocala, after receiving a call about a possible carjacking in progress. The caller reported that the suspect, later identified as 57-year-old Ezell Stephens, was driving a white Hyundai Elantra. He said he saw the incident taking place in the parking lot of the motel while driving to work and turned around so he could take photographs of the incident and the vehicle’s license tag, a sheriff’s office report states.
The caller said Stephens then ran to the vehicle’s trunk, pulled out what he believed was a real silver firearm and said, “You want some of this too, cracker?” The caller added that he was in fear when the firearm was pointed at him and he fled, the report says.
Deputies stopped Stephens’ Hyundai in the parking lot of the motel. He threw out a toy gun and was detained along with his passenger. A sheriff’s lieutenant reported seeing a glass tube with a white residue in it that tested positive for cocaine in the inner driver’s side door, as well as a large knife in-between the driver’s seat and the console.
Stephens admitted to being in an argument with a man in the motel’s parking lot. He said he uses cocaine and the clear tube with the white residue was a crack pipe, the report says, adding that he would not admit to pulling the toy gun on anyone.
A computer search revealed that Stephens had been issued a trespass warning from the motel on Feb. 5. He was taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail, where he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, trespassing and possession of drug equipment. He was being held on $7,000 bond and is due in court April 21 at 9 a.m. to answer to the charges, jail records show.