Man sentenced to 25 years in prison in wild shootout with police

TAVARES, Fla.  — A man charged with killing his father, then leading law enforcement officers in a chase across Central Florida that ended in a shootout with police has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Jonny Ze Guiseppe, 22, pleaded no contest to the charges surrounding the wild chase that ended when he crashed into a synagogue in Mount Dora.

He is still charged with second-degree murder in the death of his father in Volusia County where the mayhem began.

The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office received a call on July 10, 2022, from a woman in New York who said she was on the phone with her husband, Juan Santiago, when she heard a loud noise and the call being dropped. She told authorities Jonny was with Juan at the time.

Juan Santiago was missing. His body was later recovered. Jonny took off in his father’s 2021 Ford F-150.

When the vehicle was spotted by a Lake sheriff’s helicopter, Santiago fled down busy Donnelly Street, firing shots from the driver’s side window. He soon lost control of the vehicle, which smashed into a synagogue. A fierce close-quarters gunfight erupted, in which he was wounded.