No bond for man charged in sexual battery case
Asuspect in a2004sexual battery case was held withoutbondSundaywhen he made his first appearance before a judge in Palm Beach County.
PascalEstime, 55, was arrested Friday as he waited at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to board a plane forHaiti.
He was pretending to be asleep near Gate F4 in the JetBlue Terminal when U.S. Marshals and the Broward Sheriff’s Office caught up with him, authorities said.
Estime is accused in connection with an alleged assault in Boynton Beach of a mentally impairedwoman.
He appeared in court Sunday morning, according to Sun Sentinel news partnerCBS12.
“Justice was a long time coming for the victim in this case,” Stephanie Slater, spokeswoman for the Boynton Beach Police Department, said Saturday.
Following his arrest at the airport, Estimewas taken to Boynton Beach police headquarters, where he allegedly confessed to the crime, according to police.
Estime is accused of sexually assaulting the woman twice at a house on Miner Road, impregnating her. The woman is now 33. The pregnancy was terminated and DNA from the fetus was preserved as evidence.
The case against Estime went cold because authorities could not determine his whereabouts.
But then, in July 2016, Boynton Beach detective Brent Joseph took up the case, and started tracking Estime.
His investigation led him to a house in Orlando where Estime had stayed. Joseph went to the house carrying a search warrant to collect DNA from Estime, but when he arrived, Estime was gone, believed to have flowntoHaiti.
Joseph was undeterred and continued to track Estime. Last month he returned to the house, again with awarrant in hand, and was able to get a sample fromEstime.
The sample with the that had been from2004. was compared fetal DNA preserved
On Thursday, Joseph got word that the samples matched, and he obtained an arrest warrant against Estime for two counts of sexual batteryona mentally defective person, Slater said.
On Friday, Joseph and other authoritieswere notified that Estime had booked a flight to fly from Fort Lauderdale to Port-auPrince.