PRESS RELEASE
(Santa Rosa County, Florida) Ginger Bowden Madden, State Attorney for the First Judicial Circuit of Florida, announces that on February 18, 2026, Judge Clifton Drake sentenced Leonard Brown, Jr. to 30 years in state prison. A Santa Rosa County jury found Leonard Brown guilty of Attempted Manslaughter with a Firearm (2 Counts), Shooting into an Occupied Vehicle, and Discharging a Firearm from a Vehicle on November 7, 2025.
On November 25, 2021, Landon Powell was driving his girlfriend, Maci Robbins, home after picking her up from work at Portofino. Powell and Robbins had difficulties with a co-worker of Robbins, Leonard Brown, over his unwanted advances toward Robbins. While driving through Gulf Breeze, Leonard Brown leaned out of a car window and fired at least three shots at Powell and Robbins’ vehicle. One bullet struck the windshield and pierced the driver’s seat headrest, barely missing Landon Powell, before exiting out through the back windshield of the vehicle. Gulf Breeze Police Department quickly responded and put out a BOLO for the suspect vehicle. Officers with the Pensacola Police Department stopped the vehicle on Davis Hwy and found a shell casing in the bed which matched two shell casings found at the scene of the shooting in Gulf Breeze.
While this case was pending, Leonard Brown drafted a letter to his family that requested they bribe the victims to drop the charges in exchange for $10,000 and to persuade a third party to lie on behalf of the Defendant about the shooting incident. At trial, Leonard Brown claimed he shot in self-defense.
Assistant State Attorney Patrick King prosecuted the case on behalf of Ginger Bowden Madden, State Attorney for the First Judicial Circuit of Florida. The case was investigated by officers of the Gulf Breeze Police Department. For more information, please contact Mr. King at (850) 981-5500.
