TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A man was accused of holding a Lake County massage spa employee at gunpoint and demanding sex acts from her on Thursday.
NBC affiliate WESH reported that officers responded to A1 Massage in Eustis at around 10:40 a.m. for a report of a possible armed robbery.
Police said Timothy Paul Taylor, 35, walked into the building and confronted a female employee, who was alone. He allegedly held a gun to her head and demanded she perform sex acts on him, threatening to kill her if she tried to call for help.
She refused, and Taylor escaped out the back door of the building before taking off in a car. The woman went to a nearby business for help.
“I’m proud of her. She was a victim, but she didn’t become a total victim,” Eustis Police Chief Craig Capri told WESH. “She was able to fight him off and that’s a brave person right there to do that.”
WESH spoke to the woman on Thursday. She said she’s grateful she wasn’t hurt, but is still shaken up by the encounter.
After escaping the massage spa, police tracked Taylor to his family’s home. Capri said they found him at around 2:30 p.m., thanks to some help from Taylor’s mom.
“She said he had left and went into the woods. And he admit(ted), he confessed to her that he had did something that he shouldn’t have done,” Capri told WESH.
Taylor was taken to custody after allegedly resisting arrest and getting bit by a police K-9. He was charged with attempted sexual battery with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony, and resisting an officer without violence.
He remains in the Lake County Jail on a $76,000 bond.
