Cops: Tavares lawyer punched ex in face

EUSTIS — A Tavares divorce attorney who was arrested last week after reportedly going on a rampage at his ex-girlfriend’s Mount Dora home, had a domestic battery charge added Tuesday, police say. According to a probable cause affidavit, Barrett Paul Burnette, 45, of Longwood, punched his ex with a closed fist in her right eye and continued to throw her around a Lakeview Road home. The victim said the July 2 incident left her with a black eye, bruises on her legs and a back injury that left her unable to move for two days.

The victim said she called her mom July 4 to pick her up. The mother told police she urged her daughter to go to the doctor and call police, but the victim refused because she afraid. Investigators noted that on Aug. 8 the victim still had “a depressed area, bruising and a healing laceration under her right eye.” Burnette was originally charged with aggravated stalking, aggravated stalking with domestic violence, throwing a deadly missile, felony criminal mischief and burglary to an occupied dwelling after an incident a month later at the mother’s house in Mount Dora. The victim said Burnette had repeatedly shown up at the Franklin Road residence since she broke up with him in July after he allegedly beat her.

On Aug. 7, he reportedly threw a vodka bottle through the window of a Ford F-150, bent side mirrors and the antenna, then threw a yard ornament through the window of a Toyota Rav4. Moments later, witnesses say he ripped a flag pole out of the ground, smashed the tail lights and broke the windshield of the Rav4, then threw the flag pole through the front window of the home.