Deputies: Pasco County landlord robs tenants for late rent

Author: CNN Newsource
Published:

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. (CNN) — A landlord upset over late rent tied up two tenants and threatened to have them shot if they tried to escape, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office said.

Lynn Vineyard, 60, is accused of barging into the trailer in his backyard where the tenants live and demanding that they give him oxycodone pills to make up for the late rent as he wielded a semiautomatic handgun. Vineyard knew one of the tenants had an oxycodone prescription.

Vineyard used zip ties to bind the pair of female tenants and told them to stay put or “someone in the woods will shoot you,” according to the sheriff’s office, which took him into custody Thursday.

“They were terrified,” said Todd Koenig, a detective with the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office. “They thought he was going to come back and I assured them that he was going to jail.”

 

Copyright ©2024 Fort Myers Broadcasting. All rights reserved.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without prior written consent.