LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — A man who tried to rape a woman in Lake County was stabbed multiple times by the victim, Lake County deputies said.
Deputies said the attempted rape happened just before 1 a.m. Thursday at the Ashton Chase Apartments in the Four Corners area of Clermont.
The woman was getting her belongings out of her vehicle when she said Robert Jamell Pascual, 22, got into her passenger side door, deputies 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 every time she tried to speak, he would hold her throat.
"He was on top of her, hitting her and choking her, and he pretty much told her that he was going to rape her," said Lake County Sheriff spokesperson Fred Jones.
The woman said she told 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 nearby hospital where he’s listed in stable condition.
The woman was not injured. She got into her car, drove off and called 911.
A man who called 911 Thursday morning, told investigators that Pascual tried to assault his wife five minutes before the other incident, deputies said.
"He was waiting behind the car and he tried to assault my wife as she got home," the man said in the 911 call.
Deputies told Eyewitness News that they believe Pascual could be involved in other incidents in the apartment complex from December.
"He fits that description," Jones said.
A man is accused of grabbing four women at the Ashton Chase Apartments, and all the women managed to escape, deputies said.
On 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."