A Leesburg man won’t be prosecuted in the 2017 murder of a man found lying in a street after he had been shot four times.
Steven Anthony Hammonds, 34, had been scheduled to stand trial this month for the murder of 26-year-old Vontay Silas-Pruitt.
This past week, the prosecutor’s office filed a motion indicating the case will not move forward.
The motion stated, “The State is unable to proceed to trial because the only known eyewitness to the crime has refused to cooperate, is actively avoiding the state, has made inconsistent statements regarding the shooting, and is likely directly or indirectly involved the killing of Vontay Silas-Pruitt. There is no forensic evidence implicating this defendant, and his admission of guilt to his wife has been properly excluded under Florida law.”
Refusal to prosecute for the reasons given in the motion does not preclude Hammonds from being prosecuted should new evidence become available.
At the time of the fatal shooting, Leesburg police indicated the motive had been money. Detectives had said they were able to obtain “key testimony” from an eyewitness who was familiar with Silas-Pruitt and Hammonds and was present during the shooting.
Hammonds, a native of Long Island N.Y., has been held at the Lake County Jail since Feb. 1, 2018. He continues to be held behind bars as he awaits sentencing in connection with a March 8, 2017 incident in which he threw a completely full 13-ounce Stabucks’ Frappuccino glass bottle at a man at a Sunoco service station in Leesburg. The man suffered a large gash in his forehead. Hammonds was found guilty in that case this past June.
