Can Jared Leone handle the heat on Clearwater City Council? Past allegations raise questions

Nearly 10 years ago, a woman he dated accused Clearwater City Council candidate Jared Leone of stalking her, including claims that he made threats and deflated car tires.

A petition for injunction for protection against him by both the woman he previously dated and her mother were denied, and Leone himself was a victim in the overall situation. But if any of the allegations were true, it raises questions about Leone’s temperament and his ability to handle what can be a series of high-stress tests on the dais.

At issue are a series of petitions for protection filed in 2017, as well as an incident more than 20 years ago at the University of Florida, where Leone was a student, involving an icy beverage being thrown from a moving vehicle at a group of people standing along the roadside.

In the more recent incident, Leone faced allegations from his ex-girlfriend, Jazmin Del Valle, of stalking and harassment.

Del Valle filed the petition for injunction for protection on Feb. 13, 2017, claiming Leone repeatedly texted and called her and called her derogatory names. Del Valle accused Leone, who lived across the street from Del Valle, of “taking pictures of me getting in and out of my car before work on the front driveway of his home.”

She further wrote in her petition that Leone was “threatening the life of my current partner and I.” She said the harassing behavior began in October 2016 and continued through Feb. 6, 2017, culminating in her petition.

It outlines a series of concerning allegations, most sounding like jealousy related to Del Valle’s new boyfriend at the time, who is unnamed in the petition.

Del Valle claimed Leone told her that “he would not leave me alone until I stopped bringing around that ‘fucking caveman.’” She also said Leone constantly “makes monkey sounds and yells” the caveman phrase at her then-boyfriend.

She also claimed that Leone spit on her and her boyfriend’s cars and suspected that he deflated her boyfriend’s car tires.

The case was ultimately dismissed about a month later, noting “the evidence presented is insufficient under Florida law to allow the court to issue an injunction for protection.”

Del Valle’s mother, Cecilia Torres, also filed for an injunction for protection, on Feb. 10, 2017, making similar claims of stalking against Leone. Torres’ petition — which was also denied because there was “no appearance of an immediate and present danger” — claimed that she was followed and harassed by Leone at her home, place of work and a nearby laundromat.

She echoed claims in Del Valle’s petition, including that Leone may have deflated car tires, adding that he was looking “across the street with a big smile while we fix tires before going to work.”

Torres’ complaint had more color than her daughter’s, with direct criticism of Leone, including that “this person is out of control” and that “this man is out of his mind.”

Asked about the allegations, Leone denied them.

“When dismissed allegations from nearly a decade ago are revived for political purposes, it doesn’t help victims, like me — it politicizes deeply serious issues that should never be exploited for advantage,” he offered in a statement to Florida Politics.

It’s important to note that it does appear Leone himself was a victim in this case, and a court seemed to agree. Leone was the first to file a petition for injunction for protection, on Feb. 9, 2017. Unlike Del Valle and Torres’ petitions, Leone’s was granted for one year, finding he was “a victim of repeat violence.”

Leone’s complaint alleges that Esteban Del Valle, his mother, Torres and a friend, Francisco Alamilla, approached Leone, his brother and a friend as they were nearing a parked vehicle on the street. The group, the complaint alleges, were holding beers.

“They blocked my friend and my brother from getting in their vehicle to leave. Before I could pull my phone out of my pocket, my brother was hit by Del Valle and the much larger aggressor was on top pummeling him,” the complaint reads.

It goes on to describe how Leone attempted to pull Del Valle off his brother and, in doing so, Del Valle then punched him and pushed him toward Alamilla, “who then punched me repeatedly in the race, creating a deep cut on my eyelid, drawing blood, and causing my eyeglasses to be thrown from my face.”

“The attackers were inebriated and not going to stop,” the complaint continues after describing how Leone’s brother was still being attacked.

Per the complaint, the attack only stopped after Leone’s friend, unnamed in the report, “yelled that he has a licensed handgun and that he would shoot.”

That piece is at least partially corroborated in Torres’ petition for protection, in which she references a gun being pulled.

On paper, based on court records, it would appear Leone was the only validated victim in what appears to be an unfortunate case of a relationship gone sour. But while neither petition for protection against him was granted, it’s worth noting how difficult it is to meet the bar for stalking, which is the category for which Del Valle and her mother sought the protective order.

Florida law in its definition of stalking calls for establishing “a pattern of conduct composed of a series of acts over a period of time, however short, which evidences a continuity of purpose” or “a pattern of conduct, which places the person who is the target of the threat in reasonable fear for his or her safety or the safety of his or her family members or individuals closely associated with the person, and which is made with the apparent ability to carry out the threat to cause such harm.”

While the allegation appears to meet at least some of those standards, proving them represents a higher bar, including documentation of communication, video of incidents or eyewitness testimony. Based on available documents related to the case, both petitions for injunctions relied on Del Valle and her mother describing eye witness testimony rather than providing direct testimony from the unnamed witnesses.

To put the high bar into perspective, take a look at a situation involving then-candidate Anna Paulina Luna before she was elected to Florida’s 13th Congressional District. She sought a protective injunction against William Braddock, a previous political opponent, after a friend who also sought a protective order taped Braddock purportedly saying he could get a Russian-Ukrainian hit squad to kill both Luna and her friend.

The Judge who considered the petitions denied them, arguing that while Braddock’s actions were reprehensible, they did not meet the legal definition required to prove repeated harassment.

But the allegations for stalking weren’t the first time Leone found himself at odds with the law. In 2004, when Leone was a student at the University of Florida, he entered into a plea deal after being arrested for throwing a cup at a police officer, though Leone was not aware the person was law enforcement.

“I was standing next to a vehicle with a group of about four other persons. We were standing next to the road and clearly visible. A jeep drove by and the passenger, Jared Leone, threw a cup of ice and liquid on us. I was struck in the face, arms, and torso by ice and liquid. Leone did not realize I was a police officer,” the victim wrote in a statement included in the police report from Alachua County.

“I guess this is what happens when you’re the front-runner in a City Council race,” Leone said of the past charges.

“Matters from nearly twenty years ago — that weren’t an issue two years ago — suddenly become front-page news. I take it as a sign that not only are Clearwater voters recognizing our momentum, but apparently others in this race are too.”

Leone faces Bianca Latvala in the race for Seat 4. His claim that he’s the front-runner is subjective — Latvala as of the end of March had outraised Leone by about $13,000 and she had earned endorsements from numerous local elected officials, including the Council member the two are running to replace, David Allbritton.

Leone also mentioned that the past allegations did not surface two years ago, a reference to his first bid for City Council, in Seat 3, which he lost by about 26 percentage points.

As it relates to the charges in Alachua County, Leone did not serve jail time and was given the option to instead either complete community service or pay a fine. He also was just 22 years old at the time. It would be at least somewhat fair to chalk this up to a young adult in college getting up to some college shenanigans. Plenty of people would rather not have their college behaviors exposed more than two decades later.

But many people are not running for elected office. Leone is.

As a candidate for office, Leone’s past behaviors, even alleged past behaviors, are subject to scrutiny. And they should be.

Serving on any city or town council or commission requires a calm demeanor. Gadflies descend upon most, usually to deliver their two or three minutes of public testimony and move on, but sometimes to hurl insults at the elected leaders serving from the dais.

Clearwater has been no exception. Things got so bad in 2024 that the Council suspended public comment over what the Tampa Bay Times described as “increasingly antagonizing language and behavior during public comment.”

When allegations are made — even if they don’t rise to the level needed to prosecute or, in this case, be smacked with an injunction — there can still be at least some truth in each side’s claims. If even some of Del Valle and Torres’ allegations are true, it raises a legitimate question about whether Leone can calmly handle an unruly public commenter hurling insults.

Those who have endorsed Leone — specifically the National Organization for Women — might want to reconsider that support.

Leone doesn’t deserve to have his reputation ruined over allegations that didn’t meet the legal bar for protection for the accusers, but that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily qualified to serve on the City Council.

That’s why we have public record laws. And it’s why we have elections.