ORLANDO, Fla. – A woman accused of shooting and killing a man in an apparent road rage incident is waiting to see if an Orange County judge will grant her request for bond.
Last month, Tina Allgeo was arrested and charged with second-degree murder for the December 2024 death of 42-year-old Mihail Tsvetkov.
Since the grand jury indicted her, Allgeo has been without bond. On Friday, a pre-trial detention was held to determine if Allgeo, who is claiming self-defense, will remain behind bars without bond until her May trial.
Orange-Osceola County State Attorney Monique Worrell argued that Allgeo should remain in custody without bond because she believes Allgeo is a danger to the community.
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“If Mrs. Allgeo had fired the weapon and missed, could any of those shots have injured or killed other people?” Worrell asked Orlando Police Department Detective Patrick Cavanaugh during the hearing.
“Yes, that could’ve been possible,” he replied.
Allgeo told detectives she confronted Tsvetkov after he was tailgating her and bumped into her car that morning during rush hour.
She explained in a written statement that she accidentally struck Tsvetkov’s car in return while trying to call 911 and get his license plate information. Cavanaugh described the video of Allgeo hitting Tsvetkov’s Lexus that was played during Friday’s hearing.
“She is parallel with the decedent’s vehicle, and she strikes the side of the vehicle,” Cavanaugh explained.
“Did that occurrence appear to be intentional?” Worrell asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
Another video, shown for the first time in court, shows Tsvetkov opening Allgeo’s driver-side door after the two came to a stop. According to Cavanaugh, this act was an act of burglary of an occupied vehicle, a felony offense.
“Because it was an occupied vehicle. We have reason to believe he’s going to commit a crime,” he said on the stand.
But Worrell said the state does not share the same perception of the shooting, claiming Allgeo provoked Tsvetkov and that she cannot claim self-defense because the shooting happened while she broke the law in hitting his car.
“Mrs. Allgeo could’ve avoided all of this encounter if she had not instigated this road rage incident — second, not have committed a forceable felony against Mr. Tsvetkov,” Worrell told the judge. “She had an opportunity to retreat; she didn’t.”
Defense Attorney Mark O’Mara said the incident involving Allgeo hitting her car was over when she shot Tsvetkov, whom she claimed was beating her after he opened her car door.
“He gets out of the car, and that 15 or 20s, I think, is enough of an interlude where he cannot suggest that she was an aggressor at that point, and he became the aggressor when he goes in there and starts pummeling her and in her car,” O’Mara told News 6. “That is classic self-defense. When you shoot yourself to protect yourself from further great bodily injury. I’m a bit surprised, having seen the video, that the state’s going forward with a second-degree murder charge.”
