PBSO says man set fire to his Wellington home
He was charged last week with battery on his mother, 72.
WEST PA L M B E AC H — A man who’d been charged last week with battering his 72-year-old mother set fire Sunday to the bathroom of the Welling ton home he shares with her, according to authorities.
Gino Vincent Difonzo, 46, is charged with felony arson of an occupied dwelling. On Monday, Palm Beach County Judge Caroline Shepherd ordered him held without bond while he undergoes a mental health evaluation.
According to a Palm Beach C ount y s her i f f ’s re por t , around 2:15 p.m. Sunday, Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue workers were called to Difonzo’s home on Sag Harbor Court, near Forest Hill Boulevard. There they found Difonzo inside the home — the report doesn’t say where — and discovered a fire in the second-floor master bath.
The report said firefighters found fire had damaged clothes, a cushion and a handbag. Two ceiling-mount smoke detectors sat on a bedroom nightstand, and duct tape covered the gap at the bottom of the bathroom’s door. Difonzo, who’d been taken to nearby Palms West Hospital, told deputies there that he started the fire, the report said. It said Difonzo earlier had told a 911 operator the same thing when he’d called for firefighters.
Difonzo’s mother was not in the house at the time of the incident, authorities said.
In court Monday, a sheriff ’s deputy told the judge Difonzo had just been released late last week from a treatment center. A separate sheriff ’s report says Difonzo was arrested at around 9:30 p.m. Thursday, after his mother told deputies he shoved her and held her head down on a couch in an ongoing dispute over landscapers.
The woman said she’d never s e e n Di f onzo t hat upset and he’d never violently touched her before. She said she’d left the home and walked to a park near Wellington City Hall, which is just 50 yards from her home, and then called for help.
Difonzo’s mother told invest i g at or s t he C or a l Gables native drinks alcohol to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Difonzo also was charged Sunday with violating an injunction issued following Thursday’s incident.
Difonzo was arrested in 2010 after he got into a fight with former local TV anchorman Bob Nichols at the bar at Sherbrooke Golf & Country Club in Lake Worth, where Difonzo’s mother was the club manager, according to a Palm Beach Post story. Court records show Difonzo agreed to pretrial diversion on the misdemeanor battery charge.