Pasco: Teen's cut throat not first violence in family

Teen's cut throat not first violence in family

Deputies were called other times to the home on Faux Pas Road where, officials say, one stepbrother slashed his sleeping sibling.

By CHASE SQUIRES

DADE CITY -- A teenager facing attempted murder charges in connection with his stepbrother's stabbing last week was no stranger to family violence, including threats from the woman he said he was trying to avenge, court records show.

According to Pasco County files, Joey Dennis Morton, 18, was a victim before he was a defendant.

Morton remained Tuesday in the Pasco County jail at Land O'Lakes on $150,000 bail. Authorities say he attacked stepbrother Jacob Leab, 18, while the teen slept early Friday at the family's Faux Pas Road home in Zephyrhills.

Leab's throat was slashed and his face badly beaten in the attack, but he survived and remained Tuesday at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, where he has been in intensive care and was last reported in critical condition. The hospital has stopped giving updates on his condition.

Investigators say Morton told them he wanted revenge against Leab, believing Leab had attempted to assault Morton's mother, Laura Marie Bordanaro.

But in March 1997, Pasco County sheriff's deputies say, it was Morton who was a victim. Deputies investigated a domestic dispute and charged Morton's mother, Bordanaro, with felony assault, saying she pointed a .22-caliber pistol at him. At the time, she was under the influence of alcohol, deputies reported.

In that incident, Morton told investigators his mother came into the house threatening to shoot former boyfriend John "Gooch" Faro.

"She came in my room and said "Hi,' then she took out the gun and pointed it at me and said "I am going to shoot Gooch,' " Morton wrote in a statement.

Faro later wrote a letter for the court file.

"We all feel Laura is a threat to us," Faro wrote. "She has called our house and threatened Martin (and said) she wanted to slit his throat, burn the house we live in with everyone in it. Also, she told Joe (Morton) she was going to have someone beat his a--."

The "Martin" referred to in the statement is not listed in the investigative report.

Bordanaro pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to 27 months' probation.

Deputies said she told them, "I don't think I really would have shot him."

Deputies had earlier arrested Bordanaro in August 1996 on charges she beat Morton, but prosecutors dropped the charges.

In that case, deputies said Bordanaro, under the influence of alcohol, picked up Morton by his hair and threw a plate at him, striking his arm. Morton was 15.

An investigating deputy wrote, "While your affiant was investigating this incident, the arrestee did slap her 15-year-old son in the head with an open hand."

She was charged with child abuse, but prosecutors didn't find enough evidence to pursue the case.

Bordanaro was listed as a victim in another domestic violence incident. In February 1997, deputies said they responded to an argument between Bordanaro and then-boyfriend Jackie Lynn Leab at his Faux Pas Road home and found both of them had been drinking.

That time, Jackie Lynn Leab was charged with domestic battery, but the case was never prosecuted. Records on a computer data base indicate the two were married later that year.

Bordanaro could not be reached for comment, and Morton declined a request for an interview.

Times staff writer Cary Davis contributed to this report.