EUSTIS, Fla. – A man was arrested in Eustis on Thursday morning after police said he threatened a woman at a local massage parlor to perform sexual acts at gunpoint, according to the police department.
In a news release, police said the man — 35-year-old Timothy Paul Taylor — entered the massage parlor through the back door and approached a woman in the parlor.
The release shows that Taylor asked her to perform oral sex, but when she said that the business doesn’t do those sorts of things, he pulled out a handgun and put it to her head, demanding she do so.
According to police, the woman repeated that her business doesn’t do that, and Taylor then told her that if she called police, he would return and kill her. He then left the business through the back door, police said.
The department stated that the woman then ran out to the neighboring business to call police, though she was uninjured.
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“She was a victim, but she fought back, and she resisted, and she was able to get out of there,” Eustis Police Chief Craig Capri said. “And anytime you can walk away from a violent crime like that, that’s a good thing.”
Investigators said Taylor had fled the back parking lot in a small black Chevy, and police were able to determine where Taylor lived.
Taylor ran from his home, and law enforcement arrived to search for him, detectives said. A helicopter from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office eventually spotted Taylor hiding in the woods near Selleen Drive and Gettford Avenue, the release shows.
Police said a K9 unit was sent in to help apprehend Taylor, and he was ultimately taken into custody around 2:30 p.m. Taylor was later taken to the hospital for injuries he sustained during capture by the K9 unit, police added.
A black pellet gun that Taylor used in the incident was found near the massage parlor, police said.
“He put it under the hood to try to hide it,” Capri said. “When he drove off, it fell out, so one of our captains was actually at the scene and saw it in the street and was able to recover it.”
Taylor faces charges of attempted sexual battery, aggravated battery with a weapon, aggravated assault with a weapon and resisting arrest without violence.
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