A man was arrested in Ocala, Florida, over the weekend after neighbors said he repeatedly aimed sprinklers at students with disabilities.
Antonio Roman, 61, was charged with four counts of stalking, two counts of battery, and two counts of battery of a disabled person, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said. He is alleged to have used his home’s security camera to turn on his sprinklers to intentionally spray his neighbors as they waited for a school bus.
A family with two students who said they were targeted contacted the sheriff’s office in April about Roman. The father told Cpl. Kyle Ferguson, who investigated the matter, that Roman sprayed the family twice a day when two of the victims were loaded and unloaded from the bus.
One of the victims is a 17-year-old who has been diagnosed with Prader-Willi syndrome, a genetic disorder, and is cognitively impaired, according to an arrest warrant obtained by NBC News. The other is a 22-year-old with autism and Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome, also a genetic disorder, the warrant said.
The warrant notes that the father also has a leg amputation.
The family told police that Roman tried to have the bus stop moved by both the school district and a homeowners association and began retaliating when those efforts failed, the warrant said.
Roman is accused of spraying the students for more than a year. The family told authorities that they believe their students have been sprayed 400 times, according to the warrant. Officials say the family recorded some of the incidents.
The parents said Roman’s actions “are causing them substantial emotional distress and causing concern for their safety and the safety of their children,” according to the warrant.
“While conducting further research of this case, it was discovered the suspect has called this agency an estimated 75 times since 06/24/2023 with the majority of complaints being against the victims of this case,” the warrant said.
Ferguson confirmed the sprinkler system was aimed directly at the bus stop, the sheriff’s office said. Ferguson saw that sprinklers “activated when the bus arrived and deactivated as soon as it left the area.”
NBC News obtained video of one of the incidents observed by the sheriff’s office. It shows that the sprinklers are off until a school bus pulls in front of the homes.
The family, including a person in a wheelchair, is seen having to walk through the spray of water. Once the bus pulls away, the sprinklers stop, according to the video.
“Contact was made with Roman via telephone, who advised that he was upset about the location of the bus stop and did not like that it utilized part of his driveway for the wheelchair ramp one of the victims needed,” the sheriff’s office said.
According to the sheriff’s office, Roman said he used his security system to track the bus and manually activate the sprinklers.
Roman was at a residence out of the state in June when an arrest warrant was issued, the sheriff’s office said. When he returned to Marion County on Sunday, he contacted the sheriff’s office to turn himself in.
Court records were not immediately available for Roman’s case, and it is unclear whether he has an attorney. Inmate records show he was released from jail Tuesday.
A man who answered a phone number listed for Roman in public records hung up on a reporter who called for comment Tuesday.
