Cops: Man injured in unprovoked road-rage beating

BIG PINE KEY – A Hollywood man visiting the Florida Keys went out to pick up dinner and tasted road rage instead.

Brian Frongello ended up with a bloody mouth and a broken leg requiring surgery after an unprovoked attack from another driver, according to police reports about the Nov. 8 incident.

Frongello, a building inspector for Broward County schools, was riding down a local road in Big Pine Key when he began feeling like Richard Dreyfuss in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” when Dreyfuss is stopped at a railroad track and lights from a UFO are blinding him.

Frongello, 63, told deputies a speeding, beat-up Dodge Ram pickup quickly bore down on him and started tail-gating, its headlights boring into his Toyota Tacoma pickup.

Frongello, who said he was hit in 2003 by a speeding drunken driver who came up on him from behind while he was driving 65 mph on Florida’s Turnpike, said his immediate instinct was to slow down and pull over a bit so the driver could pass.

“I’m a little paranoid when I see lights coming up behind me very fast like that,” he said.

The driver, identified in the report as Jamie Allan Koval, passed him, only to come to a stop in front of him, blocking his way, according to the police report.

Frongello then went around the red truck and pulled into the No Name Pub a short ways later. The truck pulled up right behind him, he told Monroe County deputies.

“He got out of his truck and said, ‘Give me a reason to kick your ass,’” Frongello said. “He looked crazy. He looked like he was out of his mind.”

Koval, 32, of Big Pine Key, pursued Frongello as he headed toward the pub’s entrance, according to the report. Frongello, with $48,000 of new dental implants in his mouth, was not interested in any confrontation, he said.

“First he pushed me, I let that go. Then he hit me, I said I can’t let that go,” Frongello said. “He swung around from behind and hit me in my lower jaw, cut my lip.”

It’s as Frongello turned to face Koval that Koval raised his knee and thrustkick Frongello’s left leg below the knee, causing him to fall, he said.

Koval than got in his truck and took off, and Frongello sat in disbelief at what had happened.

“I was sitting on the ground and my foot was pointing north and my leg was pointing east and I was saying, ‘Damn, that hurt,’” Frongello said.

Frongello was initially taken to Fisherman’s Hospital and then transferred to Kendall Regional Medical Center, where he spent several days. Doctors performed surgery that placed a permanent rod and titanium screw in Frongello’s leg, according to the report.

Koval was identified by Frongello and another witness through photo lineups and was arrested Monday on a charge of aggravated battery. He was booked into the Monroe County Jail and is being held on $150,000 bond, records show.

Multiple witnesses were able to lead investigators to Koval, who has a long arrest record in the Keys, according to records.

Koval’s girlfriend works at the pub. Employees who recognized Koval and his vehicle were afraid to come forward, fearing retaliation, deputies said.