- April 28, 2024
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William Gerald Hofer (Photo courtesy of the Flagler County Sheriff's Office)
Deputies arrested a 23-year-old Palm Coast man on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon as a convicted felon after he showed up with a filet knife at a meeting to return another man’s wallet.
The 23-year-old, Z-Section resident William Hofer, had been convicted of grand theft in October 2014.
The wallet belonged to L-Section resident Deon Jenkins, 23, who conacted the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office before the Sept. 13 meeting at the parking lot of the Target Plaza on State Road 100, saying that Hofer had been asking for money in exchange for giving the wallet back. The Sheriff’s Office’s arrest report doesn’t say how Hofer got Jenkins’ wallet in the first place.
Deputies found Hofer in the parking lot at about 9:46 p.m., in the passenger seat of a car driven by a 37-year-old Z-Section man, according to the arrest report. A Sheriff’s Office corporal asked Hofer to step out of the car, and Hofer did, and agreed to a pat down.
The corporal asked Hofer is there was anything illegal he should know about, and Hofer replied that there was “a knife in the car that I brought” and that it was on the right side of the seat.
The corporal opened the car door and saw the knife, a large filet knife that was out of its sleeve and “tucked in between the passenger side door and the sear laying on top of its sleeve positioned in a concealed manner,” and “easily accessible to (Hofer) while he was sitting in the vehicle,” a deputy wrote in the arrest report.
A deputy noted in the report that Hofer couldn’t explain why he’d brought the knife with him: There was no other fishing gear visible in the car.The man driving the car said he didn’t know the knife was in the car, and that it wasn’t his.
Deputies ran a criminal history check on Hofer and found that he’d been convicted of grand theft in October 2014, and arrested him. Homer had also been arrested multiple times previously in Flagler County dating back to 2009, on charges including dealing in stolen property, various drug charges and making written threats to kill.
