Valrico man dies after collapsing in court

TAMPA — A 67-year-old Valrico man died Tuesday morning after collapsing in a Hillsborough courtroom during a hearing on the pending foreclosure of his home.

Frank Collelo was with his wife, Antoinette Collelo, 57, when he fell to the floor in the Hillsborough County Circuit courtroom of Judge Wayne S. Timmerman around 9 a.m., according to Cristal Bermudez, a public information officer with the Hillsborough sheriff's office.

Bermudez said deputies administered CPR to Collelo in court until emergency services arrived and transported Collelo to Tampa General Hospital. He was pronounced dead there around 9:45 a.m.

Medical calls in court are common, said Maj. Jim Livingston, with the sheriff's court operations division. But in the nearly six years Livingston has worked at the court, he doesn't remember a death.

"Obviously, there's a lot of stress here,'' he said. "It's not uncommon to have EMS here a couple of times a week, sometimes a couple of times a day."

Collelo's house went into foreclosure last year. The property was in his possession following a divorce in 2010.

The county medical examiner had not yet determined a cause of death.

Contact Rachel Crosby at rcrosby@tampabay.com or 813-226-3400. Follow @rachelacrosby.