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Man gets 25 years in murder attempts

A 69-year-old former bar owner is sentenced after shooting at his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend, hitting him in the hand.

LARGO - The former owner of an Indian Rocks Beach bar convicted of trying to kill his ex-girlfriend and her new beau was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday.

Clarence "Whitey" Leerdam, the former owner of Whitey's Beach Place, showed no reaction as Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Brandt Downey imposed the minimum sentence for Leerdam's two attempted first-degree murder convictions. Leerdam faced life.

"He didn't care about how many lives he was going to ruin that night," said Doreen Delguidice, 42, the ex-girlfriend Leerdam tried to shoot. "He had no sympathy for me."

Defense attorney Denis de Vlaming said even the minimum sentence is tantamount to a life term for Leerdam, who turns 70 next week and had no felony record before his convictions.

"This man . . . is not going to make it to 95 years," de Vlaming told Downey. "It's a sorrowful way to end a life. He did not have a life of crime."

Prosecutor Thane Covert asked Downey to impose a life sentence.

Leerdam shot at Delguidice and her boyfriend, Chris Bililis, with a handgun, hitting him in the hand but missing her.

De Vlaming said at trial that Leerdam had been seeing Delguidice. He bought her an expensive diamond ring and proposed marriage, but the relationship dissolved. De Vlaming said Leerdam hated the idea of losing her.

Delguidice said Leerdam stalked her, spray-painted her house and broke in. She got a restraining order.

At the time, de Vlaming said, Leerdam was drinking a half-gallon of vodka per day. The lawyer argued at trial that the shooting was not premeditated.

Early on Oct. 3, Leerdam took a cab to Delguidice's house in the Largo area. Delguidice and Bililis heard the front door open. Leerdam barged into the room, pistol in hand, and started firing.

Delguidice was unhurt. Bililis, 46, was hit in the hand. Deputies found Leerdam hiding in some bushes near the house and arrested him.

Leerdam told a cab driver that night that he wanted to kill his girlfriend. After his arrest, deputies reported him saying something to the effect of: "Six shots. I missed her. I can't believe I didn't kill her."

In addition, a videotape taken during a jail visit recorded him saying: "I wish I would have finished it off now. . . . At least I would have been accused of something where I got some results."