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Friday, March 29, 2024

Angry Ocala man jailed after woman suffers injuries while falling from his moving vehicle

Robert Michael Friend
Robert Michael Friend

A 28-year-old Ocala man was arrested recently after he was accused of hitting his upset lady friend with a car door as she attempted to get out of his moving vehicle.

When Marion County sheriff’s deputies arrived in the 12700 block of U.S. Hwy. 27 in Ocala, they found the victim sitting on the ground behind the vehicle. The driver’s door and passenger door of the vehicle were open and it was running.

The victim told deputies that she got into the vehicle with Robert Michael Friend so they could go to a bar. She said he was “driving crazy” and it was scaring her, so she confronted him and he got upset with her, a sheriff’s office report says.

The victim said she asked Friend to let her out of the vehicle and he refused. She said he threw his cell phone out the window and slammed on the brakes, coming to a stop on the side of U.S. Hwy. 27.

The victim said she opened the car door in an attempt to get out but Friend put the vehicle in reverse and accelerated backwards. She said she had one leg out of the vehicle and one still inside and the car door hit her, causing her to fall and hit her head on the ground, the report says.

The victim said she blacked out for a short time and then dialed 911 for help. She was transported to a hospital and deputies noted that she had injuries to the back of her head, her right hand and her back.

After being read his rights, Friend refused to speak with deputies. He was transported to the Marion County Jail, where a detention deputy located a wax-like substance on piece of paper in his wallet that field-tested positive for THC content, the report says.

Friend, who lives at 400 S.W. 35th Street in Ocala, was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and possession of a controlled substance without a prescription. He was released on $11,000 bond and is due in court April 27 at 9 a.m. to answer to the charges, jail records show.