FLORIDA CITY, Fla. – A sexual predator is accused of threatening to have someone burn his then-girlfriend’s Florida City house down after she confronted him for getting another woman pregnant at the same time she was expecting. About an hour later, police said she came home to find her home on fire.
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Tauarus Devon Lee — who also goes by Tavarus Devon Lee — had been wanted in connection with the April 28 crime until a recent arrest in Georgia for an unrelated matter, police said. Authorities extradited him back to Miami-Dade County to face three felony charges Thursday.
Lee landed on the state’s sex offender registry after he was found guilty in 2014 of attempting to sexually batter a child under 12. State records show the 29-year-old, whose street names include “Nook” and “Stick Talk,” has also been convicted of armed robbery.
Miami-Dade police said the dispute that led to the fire began on the evening of April 27, when Lee and his girlfriend, who he met on Facebook in January — the same month he got out of state prison — left the woman’s home in the 1100 block of Southwest Seventh Court so she could drive him to a hotel in order to contact his probation officer and be in compliance with his ankle monitor program.
The victim was pregnant with Lee’s child at the time, authorities said.
Police said as they went to the hotel, she saw “several calls” coming into Lee’s cellphone from another woman. They said she answered one of the calls and talked to the woman, who told her that she was also in a relationship with Lee and he had also gotten her pregnant.
An arrest report states that she became “furious” and told Lee to get out of her car, which he did. Police said she left him on the side of the road.
Police said she realized his phone was still in the car as she got close to home, so, when she saw Lee walking near her home, threw his phone out the window at him. They said Lee then ran towards her vehicle and jumped and held onto it through the open window frame. She slammed on her brakes to loosen his grip and then drove off out of fear, they said.
The arrest report states that Lee began texting her soon after, saying he’d be at her home to get his personal items.
Police said the woman asked him not to text her, but he persisted. He eventually promised her he would be “gone out (her) life,” police said.
“Thank you hoe a-- n----,” they said she replied. “You got me and another b---- pregnant.”
About 30 minutes after Lee admitted “he played,” police said he told his girlfriend she broke his hand and was about to “send some one right now to burn (her) house down on God I’m in so much pain.”
“N they on they way now,” police said he added.
A little less than an hour later, after Lee sent texts pleading with the victim to bring him the charger for his ankle monitor, which was “dying,” police said the victim came home to find her house burning.
Authorities said data from the ankle monitor later placed Lee at the scene of the arson and he eventually ditched the device behind a dumpster at the McDonald’s at 425 SE First Ave.
Lee, following his extradition to South Florida, was being held without bond in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on charges of first-degree arson, tampering with an electronic monitoring device and unlawful use of a communications device.
He’s also jailed on probation violations.