ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell discussed the arrest of a man accused of attempted rape at an Orange County hotel and his decadeslong criminal history at a news briefing Thursday.
Fredrick Batese Howard, 54, was arrested Monday in connection with attempting to rape an 18-year-old victim at at Stayable Suites, located at 8700 S. Orange Blossom Trail, deputies said.
Prior to that, Worrell said he had “more than three decades of history with the criminal legal system” dating back to 1985.
“I think as a community this is a really sad day. We’re seeing an individual who... has spent lengthy periods of time (in prison), I believe in reviewing his records,” Worrell said. “I’ve seen a sentence as long as 15 years incarceration, and we still haven’t seen a change. I think as a community, we should all be sad and looking for ways that we can address individuals like this effectively, because what we’ve done thus far hasn’t been effective.”
[TRENDING: Become a News 6 Insider]
According to deputies, Howard had knocked on the victim’s hotel room door Monday between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., and the victim opened it, believing it to be their boyfriend. Deputies said when the victim noticed it was the suspect, they attempted to close the door, but couldn’t. Howard forced the victim onto the bed and unbuckled his pants, before they screamed and he fled, according to investigators.
The affidavit described Howard as a transient and a high-risk sex offender. News 6 reached out to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in order to verify whether Howard was a registered sex offender and received the following response:
At this time, Fredrick Batese Howard has not been adjudicated guilty of a qualifying offense that would require him to register (as a sex offender).
This may change depending on the final judicial action for his current pending charges in Orange County for attempted sexual battery.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement
“I want to be clear... Mr. Howard has never previously been designated as a sex offender. I’m not sure where that information came from or how it began to surface,” Worrell said.
She also said Howard had been released from jail less than a week ago after he was booked on a charge of carjacking with a deadly weapon in Orlando on May 4.
“Our victim advocate noted that we were unable to contact the victim because no contact information for the victim had been provided to us by law enforcement,” Worrell said.
The Orlando Police Department responded to Worrell’s comment regarding the carjacking case.
“It is disappointing that yet again, the investigative efforts of our agency are being unjustly scrutinized by the State Attorney,” the department said in a statement.
The department wrote in an email to News 6 that the “victim in this case is homeless and did not have a current address or additional contact information to provide to the officers,” adding the officer was not offered any assistance by the state attorney’s office to locate the victim.
According to the department, officers had also forwarded Howard’s information to the state attorney’s office and found probable cause to arrest him in connection with the crime.
In June, Howard’s defense filed a 33-day motion for release if the state did not file charges. Worrell said her office did not file charges by then because it was unable to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
“This case was specifically unique because both the defendant and the co-defendant gave stories or testimony that aligned but conflicted with the written statement of the victim in that case,” she said. “It was an imperative that we made contact with the victim so that we could verify his statement and we were unable to do so in the time that is provided by law. Therefore we were unable to move forward with charges at that time.”
Howard’s arrest in the attempted rape, however, has prompted deputies to keep him detained without bond in the carjacking case, according to an order filed Tuesday revoking his pretrial release.
He also faces charges of attempted sexual battery, burglary of a dwelling, false imprisonment and battery, according to the affidavit.
This news briefing comes over a month after Worrell hosted a gun violence prevention summit with local public safety leaders and policymakers in the wake of a string of Pine Hills shootings in February that left 9-year-old T’yonna Major, 24-year-old Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Lyons and 38-year-old Nathacha Augustin dead.
The briefing also comes as Worrell says she has been targeted and involved in public feuds with local sheriff’s offices and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis regarding criminal prosecutions and the release of records.
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: