NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Authorities took a man with a prior sexual assault conviction into custody Wednesday night after finding him in a Bellevue parking lot with a stolen vehicle and a loaded weapon.
Around 7:45 p.m. on Wednesday, March 12, the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) said detectives found a silver 2025 Chevrolet Silverado with a Florida license plate in a Home Depot parking lot off Highway 70 South.
Inside the truck, officials said they found 30-year-old Dalonte Marquies Ball, who had an outstanding felony sex offender registry violation warrant. The truck had been reported stolen after Ball allegedly rented the truck from Enterprise in February and failed to return it.
Per an affidavit, police found a loaded Glock 27 handgun — which had a loaded magazine and one round in the chamber — in the truck. According to law enforcement, Ball said the gun belonged to a friend who left it in a motel room nine days earlier, so Ball was holding onto it for him.
Authorities said they also seized an Illinois driver’s license with Ball’s picture but another man’s information. Ball reportedly told the detectives he made the fake ID online.
When informed of the arrest, a shopper going into the Bellevue Home Depot told News 2, “If the cops are out there and doing their job, that’s what I expect.”
The shopper also wondered how the convicted felon got the gun.
“He told the cops he was holding it for his buddy,” News 2’s Andy Cordan explained.
The shopper shook his head and shrugged, saying, “Still not allowed to have it.”
“And he also had a fake ID and he admitted he made it online,” Cordan continued.
“Right, a lot of that going on,” the shopper replied.
News 2’s sister station, KTVI, reported in 2014 that Ball and another man were charged with forcible rape and sodomy of a woman in a Missouri basement in 2013. Meanwhile, MNPD said Ball was convicted of deviate sexual assault in 2016 in Missouri.
According to a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections, Ball was in Missouri state prisons from September 2016 to December 2021, entering the department’s custody with 643 days of credit from time served in county jails. The spokesperson added that Ball’s seven-year sentence started in December 2014 and he was released after serving his full sentence.
“I believe anybody that commits rape or a child molester or anything, you can’t be rehabilitated, [in] my opinion,” the Home Depot shopper said. “It’s a sickness, and he needs to be charged, held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
When he was taken into custody Wednesday, Ball was out on a $7,500 bond from a Feb. 23 arrest for three counts of sex offender registry violations, police said. However, according to the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, he is now being held on a $92,500 bond for the sex offender registry violations, vehicle theft, possession of a handgun as a felon, and identity theft. He’s scheduled to see a Davidson County judge on Friday, March 14.
