A circuit judge in Flagler County today denied bond to 30-year-old Antonio Figueroa-Acevedo after the State Attorney’s Office charged him with the armed and forcible rape of his ex-girlfriend in her Bunnell apartment on June 12.
Figueroa-Acevedo, a federal felon on probation for a gun charge, was arrested that day and charged by the Bunnell Police Department with seven other charges, including armed burglary, but not the rape charge, even though Figueroa-Acevedo’s arrest affidavit twice referred to the alleged assault.
Four of the seven charges he faces are punishable by life in prison. A grand theft charge was dropped. (See: “Bunnell Police Say Man Broke Into Ex-Girlfriend’s Apartment Masked and Gloved and Raped Her At Knifepoint.”)
Figueroa-Acevedo’s attorney, Garry Wood, questioned the veracity of the alleged assault, opening a small window into what may be his defense should the case go to trial. Wood said the alleged victim’s claim that a masked Figueroa-Acevedo had attacked her did not make sense since she knew him well.
Wood also characterized as a “glaring issue” the fact that the knife Figueroa-Acevedo is accused of holding against the victim while allegedly raping her was found by the victim on the kitchen counter. “Why would the defendant leave the knife behind when, according to the victim, he wore a mask and gloves and had this so-called planning everything out, including, you know, taking the camera. That’s a big issue.” But a still from a surveillance camera’s footage that Clark submitted into evidence clearly shows Figueroa-Acevedo wearing a Covid mask, lowered around the chin, as he was leaving the apartment.
The victim said Figueroa-Acevedo ripped a surveillance camera off the wall at an entrance and took it with him, along with cell phones belonging to the woman, one of them government-issued. But the camera was, in fact, found under the woman’s car, where Figueroa-Acevedo had chased her after the alleged rape and choked her before he fled, once he realized several witnesses had been alerted to the confrontation. One glove was found in the apartment, the other in his car, when he was arrested by St. Johns County Sheriff’s deputies as he drove north.
Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark, who is prosecuting the case, filed a motion to deny pre-trial release under any condition to Figueroa-Acevedo. Circuit Judge Howard Matz, sitting in for Judge Dawn Nichols, unhesitatingly made his decision in the state’s favor at the end of a 130-minute hearing that included the lengthy testimony of Bunnell Police Detective Jeff Traylor, the lead investigator in the case.
Traylor did not add much more to the facts of the incidents that he reported in Figueroa-Acevedo’s arrest report. But the court learned that Figueroa-Acevedo is a native of Puerto Rico, was arrested on a weapons charge in Puerto Rico, and eventually moved to Palm Coast, where his mother lives.
According to that federal indictment, Figueroa-Acevedo bought a firearm from a dealer in February 2019 claiming it was for him, when in fact he was buying it for someone else. He was charged with one count of making false statements in the purchase of a firearm. He pleaded and was sentenced to four years in prison, a term that began on Aug. 2, 2021 and ended on March 28, 2024, according to federal prison records. Traylor testified that he called Figueroa-Acevedo’s federal probation officer, who said he would have a probation violation.
The couple’s relationship ended, Traylor said, based on the alleged victim’s account, because “the defendant had violent tendencies towards her and had attacked her on several occasions in the past, put her life in jeopardy multiple times, put fear in her. They’ve had several issues of violence going on within the relationship. Then she said four months ago she’d had enough and made him vacate the apartment.”
Figueroa-Acevedo kept paying certain bills: the couple shared the cost of cell phones, for example. He did not have a key to the apartment: he “stealthily” slipped into the apartment through a window after the woman had left the apartment at 5 a.m. the morning of the incident. The prosecution had two pictures of Figueroa-Acevedo, one of them when it was still dark, another after sunrise. The prosecution also entered into the record a picture of the woman’s bruising around her neck.
Figueroa-Acevedo’s brother’s partner testified on his behalf, describing him as hard working and looking only to pay his bills, see and take care of his children. The victim has very young children of her own. The testimony never made clear how many, if any, of the children are also Figueroa-Acevedo’s. The alleged victim and Figueroa-Acevedo had split some four months ago after they had been in a relationship for what Traylor described as “about a year.” They had lived at the Palm Pointe Apartments in Bunnell, where the June 12 incident took place.
Wood said that the cell phones belonging to the former couple are being analyzed. The phones’ contents, he claimed, “will show that the two had contacted each other and in a non-violent way. There were problems between the two regarding paying all the finances, but we feel the downloads will help show reasonable doubt in this case.”
“I am going to grant the state’s motion for pre-trial detention,” the judge said immediately after Wood spoke and the prosecution said it had nothing else to add.
The entire hearing was conducted through a Spanish interpreter, for Figueroa-Acevedo’s sake.
Flagler Beach Police Department detective Rosanna Vinci was also briefly involved in the investigation at Bunnell’s request–oddly so, since the Sheriff’s Office has resources and detectives to lend as Flagler Beach does not. Bunnell only requested the sheriff’s Crime Scene Investigations unit.
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