Florida man pleads guilty to stabbing ex-girlfriend's partner in Asheville
ASHEVILLE — A Florida man pleaded guilty to multiple felonies April 9 in Buncombe County Superior Court, over two years after he broke into the mother of his children’s home and stabbed her boyfriend.
Under a negotiated plea deal, Thomas Bellamy, 26, of Lake Wales, Florida, pleaded guilty to a Class C felony of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and inflicting serious injury, alongside felony breaking and entering and misdemeanor damage to real property, according to a press release from District Attorney Todd Williams.
Bellamy also pleaded guilty to an unrelated charge of felony crime against nature, for an incident that happened in 2021 involving a child younger than 16.
Asheville police arrested Bellamy on May 19, 2022, for the incident involving a juvenile. He originally faced child sex charges as well as a child abduction charge, according to his arrest report, following a "lengthy investigation" supported by the Mountain Child Advocacy Center at Mission Children’s Hospital.
“After the district attorney spoke with the alleged victim in those cases, the DA ultimately offered a crime against nature and dismissed all the other charges associated with that alleged offense,” Sam Snead, Bellamy's defense attorney, told the Citizen Times.
“We pled guilty to a felony crime against nature and the reason we did is that we acknowledged some criminal wrongdoing in the case, but he did not have to register as a sex offender.”
Previous reporting: Florida man charged with attempted murder in 2021 now faces child sex, abduction charges
Asheville apartment break in, assault
Bellamy was first arrested in December 2021 after a domestic violence incident involving the mother of his children. Bellamy was “enraged at the relationship” between his former partner and the man she was seeing at the time, according to Snead.
At 7:14 a.m. on Dec. 9, 2021, Asheville Police Department officers responded to a 911 call asking for help with a breaking and entering in progress at the Lee Garden Apartment complex in Asheville, according to the district attorney's release.
When officers arrived, they saw a man — later identified as Bellamy — running in a large coat and jeans. The man was detained and found with a folding-blade knife, the release said.
After going to the apartment unit, officers saw that the door frame had been damaged and found a male on the floor suffering from multiple stab wounds to his abdomen. The man was stabbed three times, police previously said.
Bellamy's former intimate partner, who called 911, told investigators that Bellamy had "sent text messages to her shortly before the forced entry and stabbing stating that he was at her apartment and wanted inside," the release said.
"After she refused him entry to the unit, Bellamy kicked in the door, stabbed the male within, then ran from the unit," the release added.
After the assault, Bellamy originally faced a charge of attempted first-degree murder along with the following charges:
Assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury,
Break and enter, terrorize or injure,
Injury to real property.
The DA’s office spoke with the victims of the assault and offered a plea deal that the defendant and his counsel ultimately agreed to, according to Snead.
“The victims in these cases were consulted prior to sentencing and were satisfied with the resolution of these cases by means that did not require testimony at a jury trial and sent Bellamy off to prison,” Williams said in the release.
More: Ex-Henderson County deputy charged with felony assault makes 1st court appearance
Snead said he spoke to Bellamy’s former partner, who had been in relationship with the defendant for years, having two sons together.
“She was knowledgeable about his volatility,” Snead said, mentioning that this was “by no means the first domestic violence incident.”
“It just got way, way out of hand in this case,” he said.
Judge David H. Strickland sentenced Bellamy to serve a consolidated sentence of 83 to 112 months in prison. He was also given time served for the approximately 850 days he spent in jail, which will count toward his active sentence.
Upon his release from prison, Bellamy will have to spend a year on parole and is ordered to have no contact with both victims in the separate cases.
More: Asheville man whose violent arrest was seen on video pleads guilty to assault, more
Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at rober@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @ryleyober
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Florida man strikes plea deal, sentenced for crime against nature
