Fugitive from Sheriff’s Office captured

Published 7:26 pm Tuesday, February 9, 2010

A Florida man who had been wanted by the Decatur County Sheriff’s Office was captured in South Florida last Friday morning.

Police arrested Robert Lee Speights, 35, at his home in Dania Beach, Fla., which is south of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at around 6:30 a.m. Friday, according to media reports. Speights reportedly tried to hide in a bedroom before surrendering to police without incident.

The warrant out for Speights’ arrest out of the Sheriff’s Office was no longer active, but two others warrants out of Broward County, Fla., were, according to WFOR (CBS4) in Doral, Fla. One of the Broward County warrants was a drug-related charge; the other was traffic-related, according to the TV station.

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Speights had been featured on the Fox Network’s America’s Most Wanted television show in February 2006, after he failed to appear in court on a charge of enticing a child for indecent purposes, according to the show’s Web site.

A report of Speights’ capture on the America’s Most Wanted Web site claims Speights tricked a 13-year-old girl into going into an empty house by telling her that her friend was inside.

“Speights grabbed the girl by both her arms and dragged her into a bedroom where he attempted to rape her,” the show’s report states. “The young girl screamed, and cops say Speights threatened to beat her if she told anyone.”

Speights, who was 30 in 2006, was arrested in February 2006 and charged with a probation violation—original charge enticing a child for indecent purposes, according to county jail logs previously published in The Post-Searchlight.

Speights was rumored to live in Hallandale, Fla., at the time the America’s Most Wanted episode featuring him as a fugitive appeared on Feb. 4, 2006.