A renter driving a BMW has been sentenced after firing a gun during a 2023 road rage incident at Magnolia Plaza in The Villages.
Jeffrey Thane Whitmore, 68, has pleaded no contest in Sumter County Court to charges of discharging a firearm in public, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and leaving the scene of an accident. He has been placed on probation for four years.
Whitmore, who was driving on a Virginia driver’s license and listed an address at a rented patio villa in the Kate Villas in the Village of Marsh Bend, was at the wheel of a gray BMW sport utility vehicle on Dec. 5, 2023 when he deliberately ramming the back of a red Jeep driven by a 38-year-old man, according to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department.
The man driving the Jeep said he’d left the 7-Eleven at Magnolia Plaza and pulled up to the nearby stoplight. The BMW deliberately rammed the back of the Jeep and then the BMW sped away. A witness indicated the Jeep had cut in front of the BMW…