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Broken TV leads to charges

A woman is accused of brandishing a loaded gun at a repairman who couldn't fix her TV.

By Times Staff Writer
Published May 29, 2005

NEW PORT RICHEY - The Best Buy repairman had come several times to fix the woman's television. But still on Friday he could not get it to work.

So, officials say, the woman pulled out a .38-caliber handgun loaded with hollow-point rounds and told him: "You're not leaving until the TV is fixed."

Marlene Anne Bagnall, 44, of 1523 Davenport Drive was later arrested on charges of aggravated assault and false imprisonment.

Bagnall's husband told a sheriff's deputy she was diagnosed with a mental disorder for which she takes medication. She left the county jail early Saturday on $10,000 bail.

Bagnall told a deputy that she became enraged when the repairman, 58-year-old John Meyer, could not fix the television. She said she retrieved the gun from the glove box of her car in the garage, walked back into the living room and pulled the gun out of its case, a sheriff's report said. She denied pointing it at the man.

The repairman escaped unhurt after he got a Best Buy clerk on the phone to promise Bagnall a new television. She seemed pleased and allowed him to leave, he told a deputy. Afterward, he called the Sheriff's Office.

"John advised in his 30 years in retail he has never experienced such a thing and is glad to be okay," the deputy reported.

[Last modified May 29, 2005, 01:05:19]