Mother of victim has 'tears of joy' after attempted rape suspect put behind bars in Lake County

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — A 22-year-old man who was stabbed multiple times by a woman he's accused of trying to rape was behind bars Friday after recovering from his injuries in the hospital.

Robert Jamell Pascual was charged with attempted sexual battery, burglary to an occupied conveyance with battery and false inprisonment in connection with Thursday morning's incident.

The attempted rape was reported at about 12:50 a.m. at an apartment complex in the 16000 block of Nelson Park Drive in Clermont, the Lake County Sheriff's Office said.

The victim in the case was getting her belongings out of her vehicle when she said Pascual opened her passenger-side door, deputies said.

The man allegedly grabbed the victim and violently pulled her out of the car by her hair, telling her he was going to rape her, a criminal report said.

She said she began to fight him when he pulled her out of the vehicle. She began to bite and claw at him, deputies said.

The woman said that every time she tried to speak, he would hold her throat.

"He was on top of her, hitting her and choking her," Lake County Sgt. Fred Jones said. "He pretty much told her that he was going to rape her."

The woman said that she managed to convince Pascual to move back into the vehicle by saying, "OK, but not here. Please, I don't want anyone to see me."

The woman then grabbed a knife hidden in a storage compartment and began stabbing him multiple times, investigators said.

"That's when she defended herself and she stabbed him," Jones said.

Deputies later found Pascual, bloodied, underneath a stairwell.

Pascual was taken to a hospital in stable condition.

The woman wasn't injured. She got into her car, drove off and called 911.

Investigators said Pascual could have been involved in other similar incidents at the apartment complex.

The mother of a victim in one of the other cases told Channel 9 that she had a physical reaction when she learned Pascual had been arrested.

"I started shaking," she said. "It was tears of joy. It finally happened. He was finally in custody."

The woman, who did not want to be identified, said Pascual tried to rape her daughter nearly a year ago.

"My daughter has had to go through counseling every week," she said. "She got diagnosed with PTSD and she is having night terrors again."

A man who called 911 Thursday morning told investigators that Pascual tried to assault his wife five minutes before the incident when he was stabbed, deputies said.

"He was waiting behind the car and he tried to assault my wife as she got home," the man said during the call.

Jones said Pascual seemed to "fit the description" of the man in that case and others.

One of the other alleged victims, Carli Mayfield, said a man matching Pascual's description approached her earlier in the week.

"I was over there trying to lug some stuff up and he asked me for a cigarette," she said.

Mayfield praised Thursday's victim for fighting back.

"That's what's up," she said. "That was ballsy. That was good."

Cox Media Group