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Kids Found In Home With Guns, Drugs, Unconscious Adults

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By HALLE STOCKTON

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: November 6, 2008

MANATEE COUNTY – Authorities recently found two young girls in an apartment filled with drugs and loaded guns and two unconscious adults.

Investigators seized 20 loaded firearms, various ammunition, samurai swords, cocaine, more than 400 prescription pills and needle syringes from the apartment on Oct. 31 in the 3700 block of 45th Terrace West, according to a search warrant.

The Sheriff's Crimes Against Children unit searched the apartment and determined the drugs and weapons were unsecured and easily accessible to the girls, according to a report.

The girls, ages 8 and 10, could not wake their caretakers, one of which was their father, so the younger child phoned her biological mother to ask for a ride to school, according to a sheriff's report.

The woman arrived at the apartment Friday to pick up her daughter and the girl's half-sister when she saw Kristina Belluomo sprawled out on the living room couch naked and unresponsive. The girls' father, Joseph Belluomo, was passed out in a bedroom, the report said.

After being treated for drug overdoses, Kristina A. Belluomo, 34, and her husband Joseph A. Belluomo, 33, now face felony charges of child neglect and possession of cocaine and controlled substances.

The Belluomos were treated for overdoses of cocaine and prescription painkillers at Blake Medical Center. Kristina Belluomo was temporarily placed on a ventilator because of the severity of her overdose.

The Belluomos were booked at the Manatee County Jail on Wednesday and each posted $30,000 bond by this morning.

The two girls regularly stay at the Lakeside Village Townhomes apartment with their father and Kristina Belluomo, who is the mother of one of the two girls, said Sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow.

The girls have been placed with other family members by child protective services, Bristow added.

The biological mother of the 8-year-old girl told authorities she has found the couple unconscious before, the search warrant stated.

In July 2002, Joseph Belluomo was charged with felony child neglect when one of his daughters, who was 2 years old at the time, was left home alone for about an hour. The charge was later dropped.

On Monday, Kristina Belluomo told investigators she does not remember much, but that she and her husband used cocaine and painkillers throughout the night of Oct. 30 to the morning of Oct. 31, according to a report.

The woman also admitted that she and Joseph Belluomo are addicted to cocaine and prescription medications, the report said.

Joseph Belluomo refused to talk to authorities.

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