Pickle Brawl blood sport in Florida? Anthony Sapienza and Michele Bannister think so!

What is it about pickleball that it sometimes turns into pickle-BRAWL?!

For some, the fastest growing sport in America is just a game, but for others it’s almost a total obsession.

In this week’s episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential Podcast, we’re talking about the community, the weird terminology, and why a lot of folks are suddenly spending their Saturdays fighting over court time and some are fighting over more than that

In these cases, some folks ended up in the Emergency Room with direct hits to the face and head.

Drawing blood is frowned upon in most sports unless it’s boxing and that popping sound you hear isn’t just the ball hitting the paddle, it’s the ball and the paddle hitting heads, ouch!!

Isn’t pickleball supposed to be a bit more civilized than that? 

Join us for more a very different kind of court…one that has some very severe consequences!!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Starzar Law. I'm investigative journalist Molly Barrow. For years, I've covered the stories that made headlines in Northwest Florida and all along the Gulf Coast. Murder. Missing person. And mysteries of all kinds. These cases are far from over for many victims. Because the full story has yet to surface. Join me for Gulf Coast Confidential, where I dive into the saltier side of the south and expose the lies, greed, and corruption that often weighs down the truth. It's time to turn the tide and get a shot at justice. Hey y'all, and welcome to the Gulf Coast Confidential Podcast. I'm Molly, and Pam is joining us from her home today. How are you doing, Pam? I'm doing pretty good. How are you? Excellent, doing good. Happy to be here and happy to have our folks listening in and joining us on YouTube as well. If you haven't already, we would love it if you would please like and subscribe. And as always, we would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment about a case that we've discussed or a suggestion about a case you'd like to hear us talk about, because there's always something what the fee is. That is our only criteria, really. Is it a what the feasie case, you know, breaking or bubbling right here in Northwest Florida? Maybe you've got some weird what-the-feezy going on in your own neck of the woods. Well, we want to hear about it. So we've got some crazy what-the-feasy cases happening today for sure. Today's episode is called Pickle Brawl Blood Sport in Florida. Anthony Sapienza and Michelle Bannister think so. We've had not one, y'all, but two high-profile cases here in the Sunshine State involving melees and violence that erupted after pickleball games. It's supposed to be fun. People are supposed to use it to exercise and relax, but some folks are taking losing way too far. They're taking it out on their opponents and leaving a bloody trail behind them. So we're going to have more on that in just a minute. But first, we want to talk about a couple of other cases that we're watching. This first one is another one that's a Florida case. And in fact, it's in our neck of the woods, just a few hours to the east of us in Walton County, Florida. That's where Sarah and Brian Wilkes, they're a couple from Houston, Texas, they're now legally barred from entering Walton County, Florida after they left their baby alone on the beach. A six-month-old baby. This happened last October, October of 2025. They were visiting with their three children in this little sweetheart of a six-month-old baby. They go walking along Miramar Beach with the older kids, and they said it was nap time for the baby. So they just left the baby, you know, there on the beach. I believe Pam's got some of those details. I believe the baby was like in a tent or some kind of, you know, uh structure that shielded the child from the sun. But they went on walking, and people who were around just got so concerned when they realized this baby had been left unattended, an infant, that they called for help and they called the police. And then this couple ends up getting arrested. And we're going to talk a little bit about what their punishment was because they this happened in October, but just this month they received their sentence. So that was pretty crazy, Pam. I remember reading about this at the time and just being shocked, really. I mean, I'm a parent. I I've I've done some things that I'm, you know, would probably people would be like, hmm, probably not a good idea to leave your nine-month-old out in the yard for a second while you go check the laundry, which I have done before, you know, but I I didn't go walking along the beach. It just seems a little crazy to me.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yes, this is this is why though, even why? You know, like you said, it's at Miramar Beach, who's 60 miles away from us, an hour and a half, between beautiful Destin and Santa Rosa Beach, 30A, all the posh part over there. Well, we got Sarah Wilkes, she's 37 years old, she's the mommy, and we got Brian Wilkes, he's 40. Sarah is a healthcare executive, and so that right there makes me think, hmm, what's going on there? Where they leave their six six-month-old baby unattended, like I said, in a little tent on the beach, because guess what? They wanted to go for a walk down the beach, and they took their other three children with them and left this baby up there on the shore.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

For an hour. I mean, this is according to this Walton County Sheriff's Office, Major Dustin Cawsen, and he was telling the media, quote unquote, it's right there at that hour time frame, 50 minutes to an hour, way longer than what would be reasonable, end quote. And of course, these beachgoers were entirely upset about this. They stopped to take take care of her. They are the ones that called 911. You can see the body cam footage of the officers walking up and this, you know, Good Samaritan basically holding the baby and the officer reaching out and, you know, giving a little cuckoo to the baby, and it looks like a sweet little thing. You know, the baby's face is blurred for privacy reasons. Um, but you know, they did confirm that the parents were gone, and they'd also left their cell phones behind, so nobody could call them, even if they knew how to reach them. And when they got back, they admitted that they left their child, but they just said, oh, well, we've lost track of time and we didn't want to wake the baby up from her nap. So I don't know. It does make you wonder what goes on in their house with these children. And I'm not saying they're bad parents, but it seems like things are pretty blasé for them that might not be for other families.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I I there's absolutely no reason for it to me. I don't even care. There's no reason, I don't even care what they were thinking. You it would be bad to even leave another child back with the baby or all the children back with the baby, or all kinds of horrible things could have happened. You know, I I was raised by Sylvia Ann, and my mom would make me think of scenarios and stuff. Plus, why do you have to tell a 37-year-old healthcare executive if this is how she makes decisions for her baby? I don't want her making any for anybody else's baby or for them. And here's the thing: how can two grown ass people think this is a good idea? Now, sometimes there's usually one person that's being selfish or they're mad or they're manipulating both of them and the three other kids. They have four kids. It's not like Sarah or Brian or 16-year-olds that just, oops, we pregners now and we don't really know what to do. But even that 16-year-old boy and girl would know what to do there. So this all this gives makes me madder in a woodpecker with a headache because I I there's nothing to this. Thank God for the beachgoers, and thank God for the cameras, security cameras, right there at Hilton Sandestin Beach. Because no matter what they said, it is on camera up there that they did this. And you're right, our beaches down here don't want them back. You can't come back here. They simply lost track of time and didn't want to wake a sleeping baby.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

I know it is. It's just so concerning. And I do love this quote from again the the Walton County Sheriff's Deputy, last name of Coston. He said, quote, that's all fine and dandy. This was him responding to their excuse that they just lost track of time and it was the baby's nap time. And he says, quote, that's all fine and dandy, but you don't just leave a baby at a house and then leave and go off to the store. The baby could roll over and suffocate itself, or the wind could blow a towel over its face. There's just no telling what could have happened, end quote. And to that point, what if it wasn't a good Samaritan who came along and saw that baby? What if it was somebody who was not a good person and they were like, oh, here's a baby. I've always wanted a baby. Let me just take this baby. You just never know. Or or some other mean-spirited person that just decided they were gonna hurt this child. At any rate, it it does seem it does seem excessive. And again, that it it does, you know, I'm not trying to think like a prosecutor here, but it makes you wonder what else they may or may not have done when it comes to their kids. It seems like that they aren't too if they were if that if it if doing something like that came that easily to them, what else have they done, I guess, is my thing. Hopefully nothing, but um to your point, you know, they here's some of the charges. They were charged with child neglect without great bodily harm and released the next day on a thousand dollars bond. The Florida Department of Children and Families did take custody of all four of their children until other family members arrived from Texas to collect them. And in this resolution that happened in this month, June of 2026, they reached a legal agreement to avoid prison time. And the prosecution was deferred. They entered entered into a deferred agreement with Florida prosecutors, and the requirements were if they wanted their felony charges completely dismissed, they had to pay $1,000 in fines, complete 24 or excuse me, 25 hours of community service, as well as a mandatory parenting class, and then they had to stay out of legal trouble for one year. And then in addition, they were banned from ever entering Walton County, Florida again. So you gotta, you know, you gotta go some if Florida's like, uh-uh, you can't even come back. We do, we see enough. We got enough down here. You can keep you crazy out of another state and keep it where you are.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Right. Well, and I just don't think that's enough. I don't care if you took a hundred people and told them this situation, I bet you you would have a hundred people that said, no, no, that's all wrong. But this is what what being a white couple will do for you. This is what being college. These are college educated, both of them. It's not like they have every resource in the world, every benefit. It's not their only first child. Even if it was, I am mad about this. I do not think this is fair. You got a little uh guy walking through Brownsville, maybe got picked up for smoking a little dope. I can guarantee I'm kill you he's gonna do more than 25 hours of community service. I guarantee you. And he ain't gonna get off on a thousand dollar bond and it ain't gonna be deferred for a year. These people right here, this was a payoff, a buyout, a judge done something. This is not, this is not how pretrial uh diversion programs are supposed to work. This is wrong. This is a hundred percent wrong, and and you know me, I raise hell till it can't, because this is not right. Regular old people know this ain't right. I'm still mad about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah, I will say this when I was looking at their mug shots, she looks angry to me in that mug shot. And in my opinion, he looks sad and devastated. So I don't know. Yeah, maybe I'm reading between the lines too much, but I'm like, does she wear the pants in the family? Is she the one that's ticked? Because she she calls the shots and this was her idea, and she's like, How dare you hold me accountable? I mean, that's you know, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that's kind of the way I took it. And he's kind of like, dang it, I you know, I'm just trying to go along to get along, and then this happens.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah, yeah. Well, I truly, really want to know, and I'll find out. I really want to know where she is a healthcare executive. And I want to know what they think because if you are making decisions for people that can't speak for themselves like a baby and like a patient, we got that bunch up in Jay doing their frag and knuckle BS too. I'm tired of all this. You don't get to just I mean, what? What? I don't even want to call it a gift. It is beyond gift to let these two come down here and do this and use our resources and scare. And you know why I think this makes me so mad? I was at Disney World not too long ago, and these little young people came up with their baby in a stroller and they sat right by me, almost too comfortably uncomfortable, and they kept ooing and on with the baby, and then they both walked off to Tower of Terror. And I was sitting there and thought, well, I want to leave. And I thought, these people ain't back for this baby. And so the baby had made some noise, this, that, and the other. Well, I called Disney World Security. They came there, they went and got those two off the Tower of Terror, took those two and this pretend like baby that they did this all through the park to people, and they told them you are never to come back into any Disney World anything. But it scared me to death because I could I looked in the thing. I didn't want to touch the baby. I could, you know, it it looked real and all that kind of stuff. But this is a grift, these people do, not just a grift, but a psycho effort.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

That wasn't a real baby, it was a fake baby they had. It was a fake baby.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

A lot of people do this, a lot of people do this because they think that shit's funny to get other people like us, a regular woman or whatever. And I'm not even a mommy, I've never been a mommy, but I'm a woman and I've been a child and I've been around children that I love and stuff. I'm still upset about it because this is not one damn bit funny. And we got another case next week of someone leaving a four-month-old baby on their boat.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Oh my gosh. Well, it seems like people are just too footloose and fancy-free and don't want to give up their freedom. And maybe they're looking at these children as an anchor of some kind. That's sad and a shame because just like that officer was saying, you just never know what can happen. Like I said, I when I was early on, I've only had the one child. But um, I remember Vivian was about nine months old and I was switching laundry from the washer to the dryer, and we'd been playing out in the backyard. And um, I thought, you know, she we were by ourselves. So I thought, well, I'll just run in real quick. I'll switch laundry. I was probably in two minutes. I came out and she'd crawled under the deck. But you know, at least I I found her and she wasn't hurt or anything. And I got I'm sure lots of parents have similar stories, or maybe they don't. Maybe I'm terrible. But at any rate, I I just I, you know, I've tried to look at it from both sides, but I just don't understand leaving a child alone on a beach, even in a tent where strangers could come along. You know, for that extended period of time. And how do you lose track of time? I mean, you know, I again, I was thinking it'll just take me two seconds to tra change out the laundry, and I was right back over there, and it took that baby not even 30 seconds to crawl up underneath that deck. You know, so I can't imagine, you know, what you're thinking with the baby, and maybe they thought, well, this child can't crawl, the baby's sleeping, the baby won't even know that we're gone. But that's not the point. What if the baby did did something happen? We have these little storms that blow in, and you know, could have anything could have happened. Anybody could have walked by, and it does seem like it's poor judgment at the least, and at the most, it's you know, criminal behavior, which is why they were charged.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Oh yeah, oh yeah. And they won't have any record of it if they can keep themselves together for a year, but it's still hot out there, it's still the sand blowing, it's still humid, it's still all so wrong. And I'm I'm so glad they can't come back.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yeah, me too. Exactly. They can they can stay where they are. Well, here's another case that we're following. Um, why is it with, you know, what is it with some of these teachers and this inappropriate sexual behavior? We've certainly seen our sheriff cases right here on the Florida panhandle. Well, this latest case is out of Tennessee, and it involves a teacher named Matthew Gay Vetter, and it centers on a criminal investigation into allegations that he showed nude pictures of himself to a 17-year-old female student. He's saying, nah, she I was showing her other pictures, and that just happened to come along. And this girl who has since turned 18 is like, oh, no way, Jose. Liar, liar, pants on fire. He showed me picture after picture after picture of what the kids these days call, you know, D picks, and I'm editing myself here, but you know, what rhymes with pick and starts with D. So D picks. Um, that this was in March of this year. He's 52 years old, teaches science and physics. And she said that it was on his personal cell phone, and Mackenzie L. Ellethorpe is her name. They were having a conversation about schoolwork at her school, Montgomery Central High School in Clarksville, Tennessee. And, you know, he she reports it. He admits to investigators at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office that he did show her the photos, but he said, no, no, it was just an accident. We were, I was trying to show her, you know, pictures of a project that we're working on. And she and her family are maintaining that it was absolutely intentional and that he left the images on the screen and swiped through multiple rows of explicit photos without ever apologizing, and then wants to gaslight and act like, what are you talking about? Again, and my thought is too like, dude, are you that proud of yourself? I'm first of all, let me just back up a little bit. I know it's a thing that people send nude pictures of themselves to their significant others or love interest du jour or whatever. You know, first of all, in this day and age, I just think that's so foolish. You know, you've got things like revenge porn, somebody could hack your phone, you know, all this leaked nudity flying around could have repercussions. But this guy, just in my mind, I'm thinking in his mind, he's got to be like, oh yeah, this chick's pretty hot. I think she's gonna want to see this one and she's gonna want to see this one. Oh, and what about this one? And I'm like, dude, what do you see when you look in the mirror? Because this 17-year-old girl is not interested in you. How dare you assume that she'd even want to look at you without clothes on? It just that infuriates me. It's just so presumptuous and entitled and terrible to put her in that situation.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Well, he's a 52-year-old geezer, you know. Not that that's older geezer age, but when you're 17, it is. Yes. I mean, and so we're gonna pretend like everything that happens at a school board meeting or in a school and everything, a la shades of August Borden, that everything's a freak accident, or I didn't mean to, or I would ever, you know, he he showed her those photos on his phone in front of her face, not moving, like you said, not pulling the phone back or this, that, and the other. But let's let's just say whose husband this is right now.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Yeah, Dr. Gene Luna Vetter, director of schools for the Clarksville, Montgomery County School System. Maybe that's why he felt like he could get away with it.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Oh, it is that entitled entitled man, or that's a mean boy right there. Mean boys, mean girls, whatever you want to be. I just got news for all of them. It all comes. If you think you're gonna be a mean boy, mean girl, uh psycho boy, psycho girl, or something, everything's gonna come around because this is in the aftermath. This is Middle Tennessee. What else happened in Middle Tennessee when we had old Keith Irvin up there? He's like, God, you're hot to that other girl like that. And all the people giggled and laughed that are on the board, including the uh sheriff and this, that, and the other. And they got mad when the general public, parents of these children, got told them this ain't right, just like we got mad at McChesney over there in Gulf Breeze. But so his wife, Miss Vetter, I guess. I think she goes by Luna Vetter, that she's the she's the one pulling down the director. She's making $228,000 a year with a $900 uh car allowance. Her uh contract ends at the end of June. The mother of this child, McKenzie, said, I will buy her contract out myself to be done with her. So, Matthew, way to torch your own wife's career and make sure she can't probably ever work in education again because she got the same last name as you, unless that little hyphen helps there. But you know, this school board did the same thing when she got up there trying to say, This is what y'all did to me. You've tried to silence my mama, my daddy, me, and my grandma. You coming after my grandma too, you know. So she's like, You're not gonna do that to me. So she's up there talking. The public gets a little bit riled up, like I tend to get. And so uh there's somebody up there going, get them out of here, do this, do that. You're not gonna, I mean, talking over everybody like these rude MFers do at these uh meetings, county, school board, whatever, thinking you're gonna tell people, regular people that voted you in to shut the hell up. You the people came knocking on our doors asking for a job. You work for us at our pleasure. Yeah. So basically, he's doing all that. He he didn't resign right away. They reassigned him. He resigned a month after, exactly to the day there. But you know, with Urban doing this, with this guy doing this, uh then he had her so upset she went, the the girl did when he showed the pics, went and hid in the bathroom to call her mama.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Poor little thing. Well, sure, because she's how do you deal with something like that? And again, the fact that he was just so comfortable doing it makes me wonder if he hasn't done something like that before. Or he just is so much in his own mind thinking how great he looks naked that this girl's just gonna be beside herself with joy to look at his disgusting naked body. But you're right, he he resigned April 9th of 2026. Before that, he had just been placed on an alternative off-campus work site, which kind of infuriated me. They're like, oh, you know, out of sight, out of mind, I don't think so. And to your point, the public raised holy hell at the school board meeting. So he it did end up stepping down. But by resigning, he waived his due process rights as a tenure teacher, even though school board officials noted that the behavior would have resulted in his termination, regardless of intent. I mean, that's easy to say that now that he's resigned. Um, but there as far as the investigation, I think it's interesting that his wife had recused herself from the conflict, basically, or from the investigation due to the conflict of interest. Um, and then he, you know. I I don't understand why they would reassign him right away. Maybe that's a teacher union thing. I would think that maybe they just need time to get through the process and say, hey, we even looked into this.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

I'm sure it's a union thing jumping in there and them. I mean, but we know who his wife is. Like I said, we've seen this over here in Gulf Breeze. It's not necessarily a wife or something, but it's a connection and it's uh someone that uh by omission is lying or not being honorable and stuff. So I'm sure it was uh that a little bit of that that's his wife. But where this all breaks down and where it's a problem, this ain't the first time this 52-year-old prune's done this. I agree. And the problem is, and it ain't the first time you're so hot's done it, and it ain't the first time it's happened out there in Gulf Breeze. And there are so many programs now that one of them is called sesame. It's stop educator sexual abuse, misconduct, and exploitation. Wow. And do you, there right's a mouthful, right? Do you know that the average predator like this runs through three school systems before they're caught? And by the end of their life or career, they have uh have 73 victims, and that's why they call them the lemon dance and these mobile molesters and these transient trash. Because when one out of five students has been exposed to this, one out of five is one out of five. 20 out of 100 is 20 out of 100, still one out of five. 60 out of 300. Let's just say 300 children go to an elementary school.

unknown 23:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Two whole classrooms have suffered through this.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

I believe it. It's one of the reasons why early on in my career I was drawn to covering the sex abuse cases. And I'm blessed to say that I have never experienced that in my own life. But just from reporting, I could see the damage that sex abuse has done to people. I've talked to adult survivors of sexual abuse that who were abused when they were children. I've talked to teenagers and adults who didn't experience it until later in life, and especially the ones, the children who are are molested or suffer that sexual abuse. It sticks with them forever. And they carry the shame, they blame themselves. There's, to your point, all kinds of different predators. And people who are drawn to that are drawn to professions or hobbies or clubs or groups where they're going to have easy access to children. I've covered so many trials, I've covered so many cases, and like I said, the damage that is done, it infuriates me that they're allowed to. And it's only really been, I feel like, in recent years, because of all the attention that's been drawn to it, whether it's the Me Too movement when it comes to sexual harassment of women or men in their workplace environment, um, or with children speaking up. You know, we've become a lot more aware how to investigate these crimes. It used to be that children were easy to tear apart on the witness stand, if you will, but now there's entire organizations like we have Gulf Coast Kids' House, for example. And it's based on a model where the children tell their story one time to a room of professionals. Everybody who needs to be there to hear this story is there, from the prosecutor to the police to the therapist to the various folks that are going to be involved in the investigation to evaluate what they're saying, determine if there's truth to what they've got, the story that they're telling, and then, you know, how to proceed from there. So I do feel like we're turning the tide in the right direction, but it's not going to stop these predators from trying to do what they do. It's a compulsion with many of them. There is no cure for wanting to molest a child. Um, some of them, to their credit, want chemical castration, those sorts of things. But, you know, what's concerning is in any kind of education environment, there is often this knee-jerk reaction to cover up as opposed to expose and hold them accountable because they're concerned about liability, they're concerned about lawsuits, they're concerned about having a bad image or getting trashed in the community. But like we've talked about, it does come to light. And people are tired of being silenced. And in this situation in Clarksville, that's what this student, McKenzie and her family, are saying. They publicly accuse the school board of trying to silence them and prioritize the district's public image over student safety. And in fact, there was a heated school board meeting there just this month where McKenzie, who has just turned 18, spoke out publicly about it. She's demanding a full prosecution, claiming that multiple other students have since come forward with similar allegations against this guy. And you know what? It sure is easy to believe because he did not have a problem just scrolling through his phone and showing her all his D-pics, you know, and I don't blame her for going in the bathroom and crying because you can't help but feel like, did I do something wrong? Did I do something to make this teacher think I wanted to see that? That is just the nature of a girl, I feel like, and a nature of a sweet person, boy or girl. And they're putting the situation to where they've got a it would be hard for an adult to say that's inappropriate in some cases, but to do it to a teenager or a child in any circumstances, there's no excuse for it. And I, you know, and again, not trying to cast stones here, but what did his wife know?

SPEAKER_00 26:59

You know? Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, we know, we know she's not dumb, she's the director of the whole school district. So also, you know, just like you were saying, that now most teachers, most, most, most, a high percentage of them are good folks. And just like what we've talked about with this hospital stuff with Shaknowsky uh pushing down the nurses and the techs and using the bullying and intimidation and the the corporate lie and everything to where they are afraid to come forward, but it's not they do come forward. A lot of them do. Both of my sisters are teachers, you know. Sharon was and Trisha is. And I'm neither one of them would have stood for that. But you can only go tell, you can't tell a brick if they always take care of it. There's always something. And these creeps, like this Matthew guy, they look for the vulnerable children, the children that are disassociated alone or smaller or don't quite in with that big group or whatever, and they're bullied. It may be even their looks or their athletic ability. But you know, I do not know of one teacher that I know that thinks any of this is well. Okay. I don't know one at all. So in two days from now, Tennessee has already passed the Anti-Grooming Act, and it will go into effect on July the 1st. And there are going to be big punishment for this. Also, there will be definitions because you know I know this from what happened uh to my brother-in-law, what he was doing over at PHS, grooming the 14-year-olds. There will be a definition of grooming, and you will catch a charge.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Yes, well, it's it's necessary, it's needed because without accountability, these people just continue on doing what they're doing. And like I said, that just the wake of damage that they leave is unacceptable. And any institution that protects a predator, in my opinion, is evil for lack of a better play.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Well, it's like bi pervert, get on out of here and let's see what's gonna happen. I hope your wife's done by June 30th, too. And I hope McKenzie's mama don't have to pay it out. She could just start a GoFundMe, probably.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yeah. Well, I'm so glad she's got parents in her corner like that, though. That's wonderful that they're willing to stand by their daughter and hold these people accountable. And we we we'll follow that and see what becomes of it. Um, but just a real quick thank you to Joe Zarzar. He is, we're a big fan of his here on Gulf Coast Confidential. He's a supporter of our show, and he handles a lot of these cases here along the Gulf Coast where victims need a voice. When a catastrophic injury or some event changes your life or the life of someone you love, insurance companies, institutions, whether they're hospitals, whether they're businesses, they're not necessarily on your side, and you need somebody who is. General practice attorneys often just won't cut it. And when you need a specialist, Joe Czarzar with Czarzar Law is a board-certified civil trial specialist. And he doesn't just settle cases, he prepares to win them in front of a jury. You don't have to pay unless you win. There's no excuses, no upfront fees, just aggressive representation for the clients, and they don't deserve to settle for less. You need to demand the best. And if you need to talk to somebody about your case, call Czarzar Law at 855 Hire Joe or visit czarzarlaw.com. All right. Well, now back to our main episode on the blood sport these days of picklebrawl. I gotta say, Pam, I have never played pickleball, but I know people are crazy about it. I mean, I I just covering news in the community. There's courts popping up constantly. They're even looking for new places to build them, and and it's attracted a lot of attention. I I'm not much of a tennis player. Well, I'll just say this. I'm not much of a sports person, y'all. You're gonna you're gonna find me chilling watching Netflix a good bit of the time. Now I'll I'll get out and I'll maybe jog a little bit, try to get some exercise. I do like to exercise, but not like in a sports type way. I do admire people that are sportsy and athletic and whatnot, but I I'm not that girl, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

I'm Well, I am that girl. I love all the sports. I love them, love them, love them. I'd much rather play them than do them. But the age I'm at right now, I I can watch them, you know, I can play them and watch them. But we've got some uh pickleball courts down there where the port is called it's called Portside Pickle. And unlike these places right here that we're fixing to talk about, Portside Pickle has a very good reputation for good sportsmanship, teaching people the game, letting people have access, teaching them the sports etiquette. Almost every sport has some unspoken etiquette and some etiquette, like even like tennis, golf, even bowling has etiquette, you know. And sometimes when I go out, but I I this is gonna sound crazy. I let her done bowling in high school. That's go me, I guess, you know, and track. But anyway, I remember thinking we got I got taught that by my mom, but also when I was bowling for my high school, they were like, you ain't just gonna run up there like you're the only person in the place, you know. So they teach you stuff like that, and it makes for a much better sport. And if you're just a bad sport, stay home.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Well, and I do think that's part of the problem that we're seeing, you know, that this first case, Anthony Sapienza, he is what, 63 years old. His wife, Julianne Sapienza, is 51. They were arrested. Again, here we are in Florida following a massive brawl at Spruce Creek Country Club. This is in Port Orange, Florida. And I think that bad sportsmanship is just at the heart of a lot of these cases. And certainly it seems like it's this one. There was a heated argument, according to police, and it erupted over an alleged kitchen line violation. So the kitchen line is something that comes up in pickleball. I guess that's like a boundary that you're supposed to stay in and not go out or whatever. But after the match, Anthony was apparently just hurling vulgar insight, uh, insults rather at his opponent's wife. I think he called her the C-word. And when her husband jumped in to defend her, this dude, Anthony, lunches at him, punches him, and strikes him in the head with a pickleball paddle. And he ended up making him bleed severely. Apparently there was blood all over the court, and he had a serious eye injury. Well, it didn't stop there. The victim's wife and a 70-year-old bystander tried to intervene, and Anthony and Julianne just assaulted them too. And it ended up into like a 20-person melee, and then they took off, of course, after starting all this. But that is just, you know, and it's not just this one case. We got another one that we're gonna talk about here. But I was Googling, you know, pickleball violence, pickleball fights, and like cases came up around the country. And like some even came up, of course, naturally here in Florida. I just gotta say for a minute, though, I love my home state of Florida. I know that Florida gets a bad rap for being a Florida man and a Florida woman. I just think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we've got amazing public records laws. You know, we have Sunshine, they're called Florida Sunshine, you know, laws. And so, you know, Florida in the sunshine, not only are we the sunshine state, but it's an easy place, if you will, not on every level, but on a good number of levels, to get public records. So these arrest reports are public records a good bit of the time. So are other types of public records. And so we find out about people's behavior. I don't know that people in Florida are necessarily meaner or crazier or do crazier things. We just know about it here. We don't we don't keep our, you know, there's that little, that little Sunday school song that said, you know, this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Well, in Florida, we're like, this little crazy light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, and everybody's gonna know about it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Well, there's so many of us in this state. You know, a lot of states don't have the population that we have, and we're out mixing it up with each other all the time. It's a much more pleasant environment. And, you know, basically you wonder what who could make something this crazy out of a pickleball game. You know, here we got a pickleball game, the fastest growing sport in America, easy to play. It goes by a little pickup game, it's short, every all different types of folks, young, older, uh, rich, poor, good athletes, somebody that's never played before. So it's got all that. You make new friends, is what it's supposed to be about, and intimate. But one of the things with pickleball is like you mentioned, that kitchen. That kitchen is a seven-foot area rectangle on each side of the net. And it's called a no-volley zone. That means that you cannot stand up in that kitchen, you know, get out of the kitchen, get out of the kitchen, get out of the kitchen. And the lines belong to the kitchen too. You cannot go do an overhead smash with your composite racket and this plastic wiffle ball because and it's a short little paddle. That paddle, when you are flicking your wrist and doing an overhead shot, is way different than the beautiful, graceful, long shots of tennis, you know, with that furry little ball. You know, it's just different. Plus, they say the the the sound, the ping or whatever it is, it's it's like the sound and the decibels are way up there, and it's the sound, much like what what we're alerted to when a garbage truck's backing up. It's not the gentle like that of a tennis ball. So it already brings that in, and then being so close with a short little quart, you're in each other's face. And you and I were talking about this earlier. Um, I was a catcher in fast pitch softball, so I'm right up next to the batter. So you know I'm gonna talk crap to them. Oh, yeah. They're right there, you know. Talk, say anything in the world, except ugly words, and I don't talk about their mama, but I talk about other stuff or whatever. But anyway, the micro expressions are what you see, and you go, he just rolled his eyes at me, or he just did this or that, or gave me the one-finger salute, or whatever type of thing. And they said that is like a pressure cooker to be that close. And then if you hit each other with a 10-inch racket, that's gonna hurt too. But this is a composite small paddle that it only weighs eight ounces. But if they they would have been better reaching across, hitting each other with their fist, because then they would have picked up some battery charges instead of felonies. I know. Because they used the racket.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Yep, you're right. They're closer than they would be in tennis, and it sounds like it's just a combination of tennis and ping bong, ping pong to a certain extent, you know, and they're close enough to see when they're upset or rolling their eyes or whatever. But yeah, both the sapienzas were arrested at their home. Anthony was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and felony battery on senior citizens. Get this, though. He later invoked Florida's stand your ground law in his defense. I hate that law. We already have enough laws on the books that people, if they've done something wrong, I promise you we got a law that can hold them accountable. This stand your ground law was just grandstanding on the part of Matt Gates, our former congressman, who is now out of office, who resigned, but he was the one that pitched this years ago, basically, in my opinion, to appease voters who enjoy carrying guns. And I'm not trying to get into a gun conversation. I understand people like to carry them, and I think you absolutely should and be trained to use them and whatever else. But let me tell you, the stand your ground law, uh, this is nuts to use it in this situation. And and but a lot of people are using it essentially to excuse criminal behavior. You know, there's been lots of shady situations where there were no other witnesses, somebody shoots somebody else and they go, Well, stand your ground. They came after me. I just shot them dead. I was scared from alive, feared from alive. And maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But the point being, this law makes it a lot easier to lie in your own defense, in my opinion. And and this guy's standing his ground, like what anyway. I just think it's ridiculous over this kitchen rule dispute. So did he feel like he was in danger, you know, and he had to whack this person first? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I don't think they really care, Molly. I think it's that these are a lot of people that are out here playing it. Most people play it for fun. It ain't that serious. It's fun, fun, fine. Stella and I went, my friend and I went down to Fort Walton Beach on Mother's Day. We went past the pickleball place there. I looked over. I said, What's happening here? It wasn't pickleball. Everybody's having drinks and eating and having a good time. And we left. Pickleball over there. You know, it was just a good time. So, I mean, and and it ain't the office, sir. This is not the office where you're in charge of everybody. This is pickleball. You ain't no better than Joe Blow over there hitting the ball back to you, or or Jane Blow, whatever, hitting it back. It's just so ridiculous that you take something and it turns into the wild west because you got a deadly weapon in your hand. And what is so crazy, it's self-officiated. So in tennis, seems to be more gentle. I've played a lot of tennis and I love it. Here's what we do in tennis. We're like, okay, if we can't agree on it, how about a do-over? We'll play the whole point over. How about that? Not gonna kill anybody out here, but you know, it's the country club scene doing all this, showing your whole ass at the country club.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Yeah, that's exactly what it sounds like. And I think a lot of these folks, from what I read, um, were much like myself, maybe not into sports necessarily, aren't familiar with sports etiquette in general. I mean, I'd like to think that I have enough sense to try to, you know, take a step back if I start to get mad. I mean, I don't always, but I'd like to think that I would in a sports setting. But I think a lot of folks, to your point, maybe they already are entitled to a certain extent. Maybe they're older in life and feeling like they got everything figured out. They don't want to be questioned. Maybe they're not familiar with sports etiquette, but pickleball seems to be one of those um gateway sports, if you will. A lot of people who've never played before get into pickleball because it seems a little bit easier, not so rule intensive. To your point, it's people join these clubs to make friends, and then there you are, all of a sudden, you know, maybe you've had a bad day at work. Maybe nobody's ever held you accountable for doing something rude before. So you just think, whatever, I'm gonna whack the hell out of this person. And then, too, it allows you, right? Don't you get points for like knocking a ball into somebody's person, like on their body?

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Well, I don't know about that part, but you know, I I I don't think because it's a wiffle ball, it hurts. It's plastic, you know. So the the thing is too, when we're stu when we're playing, let's just say we're playing this game, any game, when play becomes a felony, you know, the consent when we're playing a game is there is going to be standard physical contact, something's gonna happen, you're gonna get hit by the ball or hit by a person, you know, running this way and that way. But when the consent vanishes, when you brandish that eight-ounce paddle ball and give blunt force trauma, you know, and so that's where simple battery turns into aggravated battery. Then let's add on, because a lot of us are over 65, that little 65-year-old enhancement, and then your misdemeanor turns to a third-degree felony. So, and that that triggers your little mandatory jail time and a $5,000 fine. So if pickleball means that much to you, by all means, I guess do that. But Sapienza, I tried to look this up. Has he gone to court yet? He hadn't been in court yet, but he well, he's pled not guilty, so there was that. But this is going to be something for us to keep our eyes on because this is so uncool.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

It is. Well, there is what's called the body shot dilemma, and this is what I was mentioning a moment ago. Intentionally driving a hard plastic ball directly at an opponent's chest or dominant hip. It's known as quote unquote body tracking or quote unquote tagging. And they say it's a highly effective, legitimate strategy to force errors. But when you're playing recreationally, many players take getting hit personally, it says, leading to immediate retaliation or verbal fights. So that's just a polite way of saying, I hit you and I got a point. And they're like, I'm gonna get you, Mofo, you know, like not happy about it. So maybe, maybe all that, the close proximity, fast reflexes, this open play, you know, these type A personalities that can't don't know how to lose. You know.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

Well, they know they know how to lose, they just won't accept it because the fragile ego thing is like, I'm a uh I'm a monster and a tiger at work. So when I come playing the dragon ball, my fragile ego. Ego, it turns over to where I'm a raw meat-eating savage.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Oh, for God's sakes. I know. But along those lines, that brings us to our second example of pickle brawl. And we're talking about Michelle Bannister, and this is called the paddle whacking incident. So this just happened in May of this year. Michelle Bannister, 47, she's a family nurse practitioner. According to police, she was arrested after a pickup game turned bloody at Treaty Park in St. Augustine, Florida. So police are saying the trigger was this match initially grew tense after there was this dispute over retrieving a ball. And after it ended, a male opponent walked over to Bannister's son to offer his unsolicited critique on his playing style. And Bannister wasn't having it. She didn't like this criticism. She intervened. She repeatedly bludgeoned this guy in the head with her paddle. And according to witnesses, she was not a bad shot. She landed about six good whacks on his head, and it left the court like a bloody mess, they said. And uh, and instead of just standing there and and owning up to what she did, she did like a lot of these people do. She gave the police a fake name to hide her identity. She called herself Ieana Lay. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but it's I Eanalay, which I thought was kind of a strange name to make up. I don't know. I I might have just said, I'm, you know, I'm Jane Smith. That just seems more common than I.e. Anna Lay. But anyhow, she's since pleaded not guilty, and she told deputies that she had to beat him over the head because he was having a violent attempt to attack her son. Um, but you know, the investigators weren't buying it. They didn't find any imminent threat to justify what she did. She was arrested and charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, as well as providing providing a false ID. And, you know, her attorney is just carrying her water and saying the same thing that she was just trying to protect her son, but hers got a little carried away. Sure seems like that.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

Okay. Yeah. She calls it quote unquote her mama bareness, and she's 47 years old. She's a nurse, for heaven's sakes, and was a marine helicopter. Uh I think fixed them or flew them or something. Anyway, she's a tough old gal. Well, the thing is, is that pickleball Pam happened to be at this venue. Pickleball Pam is the North Florida Pickleball Ambassador. And you know where they are, St. Augustine, ain't it way over there on the other coast?

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Yeah, I grew up over there in Jacksonville and Pontavadre Palm Valley, and we would take field trips to St. Augustine. So it's all in that vicinity of, you know, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, St. Augustine. They're all kind of right there on the East Coast, just south of Georgia and you know, north of uh north of South Florida. I'm such a geography person.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

How important. But anyway, she turned into Pinocchio Joe because Pickleball Pam, she said she heard some commotion over there. So she said she thought somebody fell. So she looked over there and she said, I saw this. She made me laugh at this. She said, I saw this lady, and I thought, searching for the same word here, lady, use it however you need to, hitting uh a man with the paddle ball, like I mean the paddle ball racket. And then so, you know, a bunch of us are boomers, I guess, out here doing this stuff. And she was talking about how she was talking about like how there was blood everywhere, and they had called for help too when the police got there. And they were asking her, let me see why I got something on here. Pickleball Pam said, uh, she probably got in six good wax by the side of the paddle. She was being, she was had to be torn off of him, and she was upset, but something really did set her off. There was blood all over the place. It's almost like let's get ready to rumble. But she um she said she even helped the man wring out the towel that was full of blood.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Oh my gosh, bless his heart. Yeah, it sounds like obviously she had some unaddressed anger issues. And perhaps once she started whacking him, it just felt too good to stop or she couldn't stop. But either way, that lady needs some kind of anger management, in my opinion. And I was reading too that these balls can travel up to speeds of 40 miles per hour. So even without the paddle whacking him on the head, if you're hitting somebody with those balls, that could leave a mark as well.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Oh, no doubt. Well, I wonder how old her son was. I mean, he's old enough to be out there playing pickleball. And it people in sports, people something look what we call a like chatter, hustle, hold them. You say stuff back and forth, good hit, da-da-da. It's not typically, or if you choke up on the bat or whatever. I have never taken anything that anybody said to me that's even if they were being assied, I'm gonna take it in my brain. I'm not gonna pick up the 32-inch Louisville slugger and hit them in the head with it. I know, you know, yeah, I know I agree. Yeah, and and all this started over. Now, this is the stuff my sisters and I might have argued about when we were little playing catch. You throw the ball wild, and they go, You threw that wild, you go get it, you know, and like you go get it, you missed it, you know. So that's how that goes. Yeah, but oh pickleball Pam, you know, she was she she just was just like in no words here for her. But I guess she's thinking, man, we're gonna have to rethink the my ambassadorship. I don't know what's going on here.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Oh my gosh, that is pretty crazy. Well, any final thoughts on our episode before we wrap things up, Pam?

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Yeah, I just think on these things, the top things we talked about that, you know, where you're just being careless and offensive and you know, not kind to people, stop all that. I mean, nobody wants all that. And then why does it have to happen? It has to come to a felony, or you get punished, or someone dies before you change. And then as far as sports, I if you cannot be a good sport, my personal opinion is you don't need to play them because if you cannot learn to lose with grace, then who cares if you win? You're just a terrorist.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

Yeah, I completely agree. And then my big thing on this too is accountability. Every single time I feel like not just in this episode, but in other ones, so many of these cases, somebody's first instinct is to lie or to excuse themselves or to run or to hide from law enforcement. I don't guess anybody likes getting in trouble. And we all make mistakes, but I tell you what, like we say so many times, the cover-up is sometimes worse than the crime. And if you feel comfortable enough to beat the hell out of somebody with your pickleball paddle, then the first thing you need to do is step up and say, I own it, and and take your lickings legally. You know, and for this old man, too, to be all, I'm standing my ground. I'm like, go stand your ground somewhere else. How about you stand your ground in your house and don't leave anymore if you can't control yourself any better than that? Why is everybody else to blame? Because you're, you know, suddenly afraid. Well, you weren't afraid when you called that guy's wife a C-word, you know? So anyway, not trying to pass judgment. I know accountability is tough. And like I said, it's hard to swallow your pride when you've realized you've made a mistake, but this is more than a major mistake. Even that case we talked about in the last episode of that mom in Panama City after the game, show her gun, driving around in her white Lexus in the parking lot, and then they reporter and she eludes the police and want to answer their calls, and same sort of thing. Like, if you're gonna act like a BD, but you know, a big Richard, then own it. Show us how big your D is, you know? Anyway. Don't be acting like that. Yeah, I guess that's the moral of the story. Don't be acting like that. Uh well, Pam, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you for joining us along on this episode of Pickle Brawl, Blood Sport in Florida. Anthony Sapienzo and Michelle Bannister think so. I'm your host, writer, and producer Molly Barrows, with co-host and researcher Pam Hill. And a big thanks as always to our director, editor, and production engineer James Roy. Remember, you can check out more episodes of Gulf Coast Confidential wherever you listen to your favorite podcast or on our Gulf Coast Confidential YouTube channel. We would just love it if you would like and subscribe, and we will see you next time.