Naples man accused of grabbing a 15-year-old boy by the throat at a movie theater
A Florida man is accused of grabbing a 15year-old boy by the throat before pushing him to the ground at a movie theater in Collier County, according to authorities.
Carl W. Pukin, 41, of Naples was arrested Friday on one count of battery and bonded out the next day, county records show.
Pukin is also a suspect in another violent incident that happened earlier this month at a park in
Naples, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office said Monday in a Facebook post. Both incidents were captured on cellphone video and widely shared on social media — which led police to identify Pukin as the suspect.
On June 10, sheriff deputies were called to the Town Center 6 movie theater in the East Naples area regarding a battery report. But when they got there, Pukin had already left, according to his arrest report.
The boy told police that
Pukin accused him of knocking into his child at the movie theater before grabbing him by the throat and pushing him to the ground. Deputies say he also threatened the teen with more violence and held him until bystanders were able to pull him off the boy.
The incident was also recorded by the movie theater’s security cameras, according to the report.
The footage shows Pukin grabbing the teen by the neck and throwing him to the ground. It also shows him holding a young child as he grabs and pushes the teen, the sheriff’s office added.
Morgan Esposito, a woman who was with Pukin, told investigators that the teen bumped into her daughter while leaving the movie theater — making her fall. Esposito told police she saw Pukin yelling at the boy but that she didn’t hear what he said because she was trying to get her children away from the scene.
“Keeping children safe is my No. 1 priority,” Sheriff Kevin Rambosk said in the Facebook post. “I am committed to ensuring anyone who commits an act of violence against a child in Collier
County is brought to justice.”
The Miami Herald called Pukin but the call went straight to a full mailbox. County court records show Pukin has a domestic violence compliance hearing on July 11 after his ex-wife Monday requested an extension to a restraining order from 2019.
On Monday, the Naples Police Department told the Herald that it’s also investigating Pukin in connection with an unrelated incident that happened on June 13 at Baker Park. Lt. Bryan McGinn, a police spokesman, said that the department submitted an arrest warrant request to the State Attorney’s Office for review.
Cellphone video circulating online shows a man threatening to break the jaw of a woman at Baker Park while children played nearby. According to the arrest report, Pukin lives within walking distance of the park.
Sonia Telusnord wrote on a Facebook post that she and her sister were setting tables for a kid’s birthday party when their children told them that a man was being mean to them — asking their age, weight and height.
“He was implying and assuming that VJ shouldn’t be in that play area but VJ was in the right area designated for kids aged 5-12 as the playground sign clearly indicated,” she said in the Facebook post, which is public.
When they went to see what was going on, Telusnord said the man told her sister to tell one of their kids who is 10-yearold to “watch what he’s doing” and that “he almost hit someone else’s kid coming down the slide.”
“We advised him not to address the kids and to come to us [the adults] with any complaints,” she said on Facebook. “He then walks over and gets in my sister’s face threatening to break her jaw.”
Telusnord said in her Facebook post that the man called them “trash,” “animals,” “classless,” “transvestites” and other “racially insensitive comments.” Telusnord is Black and the man in the video is white.
“We can’t even go to the park in peace,” she said.
Telusnord could not be reached for comment.