A 24-year-old man identified as Deglis Antoni Jarquin was arrested on Wednesday at his home in the Tamiami neighborhood of Miami-Dade after being accused of kidnapping and brutally assaulting a woman who had agreed to let him drive her home after her shift at a café in Sweetwater, according to local media.
Although the arrest has not taken place until now, the incident occurred in the early morning of July 16, around 12:30 a.m., when the victim finished their shift at the café La Escalerita.
Jarquin, a Nicaraguan citizen and a regular customer of the establishment, offered to give her a ride when the transportation service she had requested did not show up.
"I saw death that day": the account of the victim
The woman, identified as Yajayda, broke her silence and described what she experienced that night in statements collected by Univision.
"I was requesting my Uber, but it never arrived. I was going to request it again when he noticed I was trying to get my Uber and offered to give me a ride, so I didn't see it as a problem," she said.
According to the victim's account, during the journey on the Palmetto Highway, Jarquin allegedly began making sexual propositions and touching her inappropriately.
Instead of taking her to her destination, he would have driven to a dark area on the 16900 block of Northwest 37th Avenue, in Miami Gardens, where he allegedly kissed her without her consent and demanded to have intimate relations.
“And he says to me: 'Give me a kiss.' I respond: 'Why? Is it for the favor you’re doing me? If you want, I can pay you for the ride.' And he grabs me by the neck. When I see I can’t breathe, I say: 'Okay, I’ll be intimate with you.' I said it so that he would let me go,” the victim recounted.
The aggression and the escape
When the woman managed to get him to let her go, she says she opened the vehicle's door and tried to escape, falling to her knees on the pavement.
According to her testimony, Jarquin lunged at her immediately.
“He grabbed me by my hair, threw me against the pavement, and hit me a lot with his fist. Honestly, I saw death that day,” he stated.
According to the police report, Jarquin is also said to have struck the back of the woman's head against the concrete several times and bitten her in the stomach.
The victim was left unconscious and abandoned on the road. When they regained consciousness, the accused had already fled in their car.
The next day, she returned to work with a swollen face covered in bruises. The owner of the business, Ariana Arria, called the police upon seeing the state in which her employee arrived and expressed her disbelief regarding the behavior of someone who was a regular customer at the establishment.
“We see faces, but we do not know hearts. We never imagined that there would be this kind of reaction. I am surprised, astonished,” Arria said to Univision.
The investigation and the charges
The investigation by the Miami Gardens Police Department, which lasted nearly three months, included reviewing surveillance footage and a photo lineup in which Yajayda identified Jarquin about two weeks after the attack.
Analysis of cell phone antenna records was also conducted, which tracked the suspect's phone on a route from the cafeteria to the location of the reported assault.
During the interrogation, Jarquin provided a different account: he claimed that they had both agreed to engage in sexual relations for money, and that it was the woman who struck him first.
However, according to the police, the physical evidence and phone records support the charges made against Jarquin.
The man is facing a charge of kidnapping—a crime that can be punished with life imprisonment in Florida, depending on the circumstances—and additional charges of physical assault.
According to reports about his arrest, he remains detained at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center (TGK) without the right to bail and is also facing a immigration hold by federal immigration authorities.
"The truth is I thought that was my day. I felt like I was at my last breath, honestly, but I fought and fought, and thanks to God, here we are," Yajayda concluded, leaving a message for other women: "Don't get involved with anyone you don't know."
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