The ruling turns on a narrow question of evidence and procedure rather than on the Ferrari episode itself.
A Florida appeals court has upheld a domestic violence protection order against a husband who turned up unannounced at his estranged wife's condominium asking about his Ferrari, according to a report in the Times of India. The ruling of 6 November concerned Gerald Buchheit and Cara Siciliano, who were going through a divorce. The Sixth District Court of Appeal of Florida found that a 62-second video of the December 2024 visit did not show domestic violence, yet upheld the order on the strength of three earlier incidents Siciliano described in testimony.
The facts, as set out in case details available on Justia and reported by the Times of India, are these. The couple had been separated since 2022. Buchheit lived in Buffalo, New York, and Siciliano in Fort Myers, Florida. In December 2024 he went to her condo without telling her in advance, saying he wanted to collect his mail, leave gifts he had bought in Italy and ask about his Ferrari, which he could not find in the garage. Siciliano said he arrived at around 7 am while she and her 17-year-old daughter were at home, entered her bedroom, shouted at her and recorded her while demanding to know where the car was. Buchheit denied the allegations and argued that the video showed he had neither threatened nor chased her.
The court examined the recording. It showed Buchheit standing outside a closed door and calmly asking where the Ferrari was; Siciliano's daughter asked why he was there, and he replied that he had bought the house. Siciliano, in a bathrobe, asked him to leave while dialling her phone. He walked towards her bedroom, she closed the door, he appeared to open it slightly and she shut it again; he then walked towards the exit. The appeals court said the recording did not show him shouting, chasing her, behaving aggressively or making threats, and agreed that the visit alone could not justify the order.
What sustained the order was Siciliano's account of earlier violence. She described incidents in June 2016, March 2020 and February 2022, including an alleged choking, a smashed phone and a punch to the back at Mar-a-Lago. Buchheit disputed each account, saying the wine glass had fallen and that he had acted to stop her hitting him, and he denied the Mar-a-Lago assault. She said she had not contacted police or sought protection after those incidents, citing his several residences, frequent moves and the divorce. She also told the court his behaviour had worsened after a plane crash earlier in 2024, that he had started drinking more, and that the earlier violence had occurred when he was drinking. A fourth alleged incident, from January 2023, was excluded because it had not appeared in her original petition.
The court held that the three earlier incidents were enough to support the order, noting that Florida law sets no time limit on how far back judges may look and requires courts to examine the history between the parties when assessing the risk of future violence. Buchheit argued the incidents were too old, but raised the point only in his motion for rehearing, too late to challenge. The ruling turns on a narrow question of evidence and procedure rather than on the Ferrari episode itself, and it does not resolve the disputed accounts of the earlier incidents, which remain allegations tested only in a protection hearing.
