FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Three months and one day after he left state prison, a multi-time convicted felon and sex offender found himself back behind bars after Fort Lauderdale police said he robbed a high schooler at a school bus stop.
Steven Gagliani, 55, then tried to force his way onto the school bus, according to an arrest report obtained Saturday by Local 10 News.
According to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department report, the incident happened at around 6:45 Wednesday morning in the 1300 block of Cordova Road in the city’s Lauderdale Harbours neighborhood.
The report states that Gagliani approached the high school senior and asked him if he has his bag, to which the student replied no.
Police said Gagliani then asked the victim if he had $5 and how much his Beats by Dre headphones cost.
He then told the student that he “had a knife,” placing the high schooler in fear, police said. The report states that Gagliani “demanded the Beats” and threatened the victim by saying he “would stab him.”
“The victim, who believed that (Gagliani) had a knife, handed over his Beats,” police said.
But Gagliani’s one-man crime wave was just beginning, police said. As the victim got onto the bus in an attempt to escape him, Gagliani “attempted to pry the doors open to reach the victim and other students on the bus,” police said.
The bus driver was able to keep the doors closed, the report states.
It states that Fort Lauderdale police officers spotted him nearby in the 1300 block of Southeast 17th Street, where he resisted arrest as they tried to take him into custody.
It also states that cops found crack cocaine paraphernalia in his pocket.
While in custody, he also threatened to kill an officer and his family and “make him watch,” police said.
Gagliani’s armed robbery, burglary, death threat to a law enforcement officer, drug paraphernalia and resisting arrest charges add to an already sordid criminal history.
Florida Department of Corrections records state he got out of prison on Dec. 18 after Broward convictions for burglary and obstruction, along with multiple counts of violating sex offender registration requirements. He served about two-and-a-half years of a four-and-a-half-year sentence.
The conviction that landed him on Florida’s sex offender registry, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, was for a home invasion rape in suburban Chicago.
Court archives show that as an 18-year-old, Gagliani burglarized a woman’s DuPage County, Illinois home on Aug. 2, 1988 and waited for her to return. When she did, he proceeded to rape her while holding a nightstick and threatening to “smash (her) brains in.”
He was convicted of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, among other charges, landing him on the Illinois sex offender registry as well.
According to Broward Sheriff’s Office jail records, Gagliani was on parole for the Florida convictions at the time of his Fort Lauderdale arrest.
He remained in the BSO Main Jail Saturday with no bond, owing to the parole hold.