Man again faces rape charges from DNA discovery
He had a one-way ticket for a flight to Haiti on Monday, but a fugitive’s apparent plan to flee from rape allegations was foiled by federal agents from South Florida.
Authorities Estime
in ago.
Informed Tuesday of Estime’s capture, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Joseph Marx ordered the Orlando man to be held without bond pending his return.
Estime originally was taken into custody in July 2017 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, also before an expected trip to Port- Boynton say Pascal Estime, 56, was arrested by U.S. Marshals at Orlando International Airport, on charges that he sexually battered a mentally impaired woman Beach 15 years Mayor Wayne Messam, center, and local elected leaders, Everglades restoration and clean energy advocates, and concerned citizens express opposition to the Kanter Real Estate oil drilling proposal and call on the governor, the legislature, and the public to support the efforts to stop Kanter’s plan.
au-Prince. Agents then acted on a warrant for Estime’s DNA, which led to a cold-case breakthrough.
According to prosecutors, it was a near-perfect match to DNA from fetal tissue collected and preserved through the years after the 20-year-old victim’s pregnancy was aborted in 2004.
The victim, with an IQ in the range of 40 to 55, was raped by Estime twice in the home of her caretaker, Boynton Beach police said.
But in late 2017, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer threw out the charges.
The judge ruled that a four-year statute of limitations to bring first-degree felony charges applied to Estime — meaning a 2008 deadline — regardless of the recent DNA match.
Schosberg Feuer found that a DNA link for a cold case arrest is allowed only when a suspect remains unknown until the DNA discovery.
Estime’s “identity here was corroborated — not established — by DNA evidence,” she wrote, noting that the victim had given a sworn statement naming “Pascal” as her attacker.
Prosecutors contended they couldn’t pursue a case with just the woman’s statement, because she “suffered from a severe intellectual disability, had limited ability to communicate and was easily confused.”
While the State Attorney’s Office appealed the judge’s 2017 barring of the DNA-based prosecution, Estime returned to his home in Central Florida.
He remained there even after a state appeals court in December reversed Schosberg Feuer’s decision and found the charges are permissible.
The ruling, by a threejudge panel for the 4th District Court of Appeal, said the key factor is a 2006 state law that removes the statute of limitations for DNA evidence.
This agreed with an argument by prosecutors that although Estime became a suspect in 2004, his identity was not “established” under the law until the DNA match 13 years later.
Estime’s lawyers had insisted that the clock had run on the prosecution.
“The defendant contended that the victim identified him as the perpetrator in 2004, and DNA evidence merely corroborated her allegations,” Associate Judge Jennifer Hilal wrote for the appeals court. “Thus, he argued DNA did not ‘establish’ his identity, and [the 2006 law] did not apply.”
But now it does. The two counts of sexual battery on a mentally defective person, are punishable by up to 60 years in prison.