On August 16th, the Tampa Bay Times broke the news that Phillip A. Thomas of South Carolina broke into the Florida home of Sonya Deville, real name Daria Berenato. Thomas was arrested on charges of attempted kidnapping. Per the Sheriff’s office, Thomas had been planning the abduction for eight months. He had a knife, plastic zip ties, duct tape, mace and other items and admitted to deputies that he was planning to take Berenato hostage.
Tampa Bay Times’ Tony Marrero published an article which includes quotes from Daria Berenato that she wrote as a part of her petition for stalking protection that she filed on 8/17. Sonya came face to face with Phillip Thomas on her back porch and she yelled at him, “What are you doing? What do you want?” Thomas just stared at Berenato and she wrote that it was then that she knew he was there to harm her.
“That is when I realized this person was not here to rob me, he was there to hurt me.”
Thomas was holding a knife and pepper spray when he approached her. Daria went to bed around 1 AM and at 2:41 AM, her security alarm went off. She ran to the keypad near her garage which showed that one of her doors were open. Daria then went to another part of her home which her friend was in to wake said individual up.
“As I was ensuring the sliding glass door lock was secure, I looked up and on my back lanai was Phillip.” It’s confirmed in the article that Mandy Rose, real name Amanda Saccomanno was in the home with Berenato. Berenato grabbed her keys and she and Saccomanno drove off.
Daria Berenato typed Phillip Thomas’ name into Instagram and found an abundance of messages from him to her that date back to early 2019. One of the accounts without a profile picture messaged her at midnight on Sunday, “Look outside, baby, by your pool. I’m here. I’m gonna kill that little b—- you have inside with you.”
She was also messaged on July 5th that the account user found her home address. Her family was also verbally threatened through those messages and she was sent photos of said individual’s private area.
“I’m a public figure with a social media following of almost 1 million so all his messages were in my ‘request’ folder, which is filled with thousands of messages from people I do not follow.”
The prosecution motion added the following:
“The defendant admitted that his intention was to take Mrs. Berenato hostage by spraying her (with) pepper spray, binding her hands with the zip ties, and wrapping duct tape around her arms to prevent from fighting back. He stated that he intended to keep Mrs. Bernato hostage, preventing her from attending a planned event schedule for the following week, and that he was not going to leave her residence without her answering all of his questions.”
Phillip Thomas remained in the home, thinking that Berenato and Saccomanno were upstairs hiding. A hearing is set for Thursday on the prosecution motion to prevent Thomas’ release on bail. Daria Berenato (Sonya Deville) and Amanda Saccomanno (Mandy Rose) are scheduled to go one-on-one this coming Sunday at WWE’s SummerSlam pay-per-view.
