Palm Coast’s Eric Floyd, 35, Jailed On 4 Rape Counts Involving Minor Step-Daughter

Eric Floyd, 35, of 36 Fairway Circle in Palm Coast, was booked at the Flagler County jail Friday without bond on four first-degree felony counts of rape on a person within familial custody and a count of lewd and lascivious battery.

The alleged victim was 14 to 15 years old at the time of what she described, according to Floyd’s arrest report, as “like a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship” that had started when she was 14 and ended only when Floyd moved out and was separated from her mother. The marriage ended in 2014.

Toward the end of the last school year, the alleged victim, who had turned 17, felt compelled to tell a counselor at her local high school of the incidents that had developed between her and her step-father. “Stressful life events caused her to reveal the previous incidents involving E. Floyd,” the report states. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office started an investigation led by detective Annie Conrad, who documented text messages and phone conversations between Floyd and the alleged victim.

The girl “specifically spoke with E. Floyd of the relationship they previously had including their sexual relationship,” according to the arrest report. Floyd in those conversations “never denied the relationship, and wanted to continue the relationship” with the alleged victim.

The alleged victim told detectives that she would feel obliged to perform sexual acts on Floyd, and that at one point a trip out of town was arranged for the entire family in which he’d booked two hotel rooms. He had planned to take one of the rooms with his step-daughter, with the rest of the family in the other room, “for the purpose of having sexual intercourse with [the alleged victim] and taking her virginity.”

The family ended up going on the trip, but without Floyd, because no care for the family’s pets had been arranged. He then allegedly send the girl a cell phone image of a straight-line slash or cut on his arm, and told her he could not go 10 days without seeing her, and wanted to end his life. He sent the same image to his then-wife, but told her he had fallen in the shower, according to the arrest report.

Speaking to the detective, Floyd said he had tried to commit suicide, but called sending the picture to the girl a mistake.

The communications monitored by the detective included text message exchanges in which the girl at one point asks Floyd: “How do we break the news when I am 18? I mean if mom finds out we had sexual relationship a few years ago. She asked one day but I covered but it would seem really sketchy and she’d probably question it. Could you still get in trouble if it’s after I’m 18? Or would it still be bad for you even if I’m not a minor then?”

“Well,” the message ostensibly from Floyd returned, “it would be something that developed recently. So that’s the way to go in my opinion.”

In an interview with the detective, Floyd denied any inappropriate relationship, describing his relationship with her, before the divorce from her mother, as very close, and describing her as “very clingy/touchy feely.” But he was shocked at the allegations and mad that they were made. He did not remember having any relationship talks in texts.

Circuit Judge Matthew Foxman signed Floyd’s arrest warrant, which was served soon after midnight on July 29.