Although a murder charge levied against an Orlando woman for a fatal road rage incident has been dropped a month after Attorney General James Uthmeier insisted she acted in self-defense, she’s still headed to prison, a court ruled Thursday.
An Orange County judge Thursday morning agreed to drop Tina Allgeo’s second-degree murder charge after the 47-year-old took a plea deal, pleading no contest to aggravated battery. Allgeo was sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by 10 years of probation.
The local case took on a statewide angle when Uthmeier in September publicly bashed Orlando’s Democratic State Attorney, Monique Worrell, for pursuing a murder charge against Allgeo, whom Uthmeier believed acted in self-defense under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. Although Allgeo initially claimed a defense under Stand Your Ground, on Thursday she changed course.
Still, Uthmeier celebrated the dropped murder charge on social media.
“We’re glad to see that Orlando State Attorney Worrell took our advice and dropped the unjust murder charge against Tina Allgeo this morning. Ms. Allgeo clearly acted in self-defense,” Uthmeier posted. “In Florida, we will protect the right to stand your ground against violent aggressors.”
The Allgeo case served as another chapter in the deepening feud between Uthmeier and Worrell, who first clashed through Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023. When Uthmeier served as the governor’s chief of staff, Worrell was suspended for allegedly neglecting “her duty to faithfully prosecute crime in her jurisdiction.”
Despite this, Worrell won her seat back in November 2024, unseating the attorney DeSantis had appointed to replace her.
Most recently, Uthmeier last month accused Worrell of refusing to prosecute pedophiles. In April, he said she was slow-walking and ignoring a mounting backlog of cases.
Worrell has denied all wrongdoing, accusing Uthmeier in turn of incompetence.
What happened?
The Orange County Grand Jury indicted Allgeo in February for the second-degree murder with a firearm of 42-year-old Mihail Tsvetkov. Surveillance footage shows Allgeo outside of her car, taking photos of Tsvetkov’s plates. When Tsvetkov drove away, she pursued him and struck his car with hers, the Phoenix previously reported.
A red light camera video then follows Tsvetkov as he exits his car, yanks open Allgeo’s car door, and begins to beat her, seemingly attempting to pull her out of her vehicle. Allgeo then pulls the trigger on her firearm, shooting Tsvetkov “in the face” and killing him almost instantly.
Uthmeier said Allgeo acted under the state’s Stand Your Ground law, which was passed in 2005. The law allows Floridians to use deadly force in self-defense as long as they are not engaged in criminal activity.
Worrell disagreed. During her quarterly meeting, she said, “The Attorney General has political motivations to try to label me as an anti-Second Amendment person; that is not the case,” ClickOrlando reported.
She added that Stand Your Ground still has limitations.
“What those limitations include is one, if you’re the aggressor, you now have a duty to retreat, and two, if you are in the commission of a crime, you have the duty to retreat,” Worrell said.
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