[PHOTO CREDIT: Lake County Sheriff’s Office]
[Original Publish Date: 04/26/21]
EUSTIS, Florida — Fewer than than eight hours after a Eustis man bonded out of jail for battering and chasing his pregnant wife with two children in her car through Eustis, he was arrested yet again.
On Sunday, Lake Legal News reported on the Thursday arrest of Emmanuel Travis Cazeau, 37, after he was seen chasing his pregnant wife through Eustis. Eustis Police Department received information Cazeau was in an older blue Ford Explorer chasing his wife, who was driving a 2014 Chevy Traverse; the vehicles left traveling westbound from in front of Eustis Elementary School, 714 Citrus Avenue and were later seen westbound on Orange Avenue. A caller said they saw the vehicles crash and make U-turns on Orange Avenue and begin traveling eastbound. EPD officers located the vehicles at Orange Avenue and Prescott Street.
The couple told differing stories, but police determined Cazeau was the aggressor, and he was arrested for battery on a pregnant female and child endangerment. Cazeau was given a $10,000 bond and spent the night in jail before bonding out Friday afternoon. Later that same evening around 10:20 p.m. Cazeau was the passenger in a car that was pulled over for speeding after leaving a home “known to be associated with narcotics,” the arresting officer noted in the affidavit.
EPD officers requested assistance from a Lake County Sheriff’s Office K9, and K9 Ghost alerted at the front passenger door, where Cazeau was sitting. After the alert, EPD officers searched the vehicle and found a bag containing an empty cell phone box, according to the affidavit. At the bottom of the bag an officer found a clear plastic bag tied in a knot that contained multiple yellow and white pills and a brown powdery substance. The pills were tested on scene and tested positive for MDMA. The pills weighed a total of 13.1 grams — enough to be charged with trafficking.
Cazeau was taken into custody and transported to the Lake County Jail where he is being held on no bond at the arresting officer’s request.
This is Cazeau’s second drug trafficking arrest in just over a year. In 2019, Cazeau was pulled over by an LCSO deputy for running a stop sign. A passenger is his vehicle handed a deputy a gallon-size bag containing more than 1,000 grams of methamphetamine and told him Cazeau told her to hide it. Cazeau, who had more than $1,700 cash on him, was charged with several offenses, including trafficking in methamphetamine. He was released on $27,000 bond. That bond deviated from the Fifth Judicial Circuit bond schedule due to a miscommunication between the arresting deputy and the jail, Lake County Sheriff’s Lt. Fred Jones told LLN in November 2019. At the time of that arrest, Cazeau was out on bond in an Orange County case accusing him of vehicular homicide failing to render aid, leaving the scene of a crash with death, leaving the scene of a crash with serious bodily injury and reckless driving with bodily injury. According to the probable cause affidavit in that case, on April 1, 2019 Cazeau ran a stop sign (the same infraction that caused him to be pulled over in the Lake County case) at West Michael Gladden Avenue and Hawthorne Avenue in Apopka and he struck a vehicle with two occupants, killing the passenger and critically injuring the driver. He and another male fled the scene before law enforcement arrived.
Upon searching the vehicle, an Apopka Police officer found powder cocaine, crack cocaine, Oxycodone, Molly, and Alprazolam. The deployed airbags were taken from the vehicle and sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for testing. The tests later revealed Cazeau as the driver. He was arrested in Lake County on Oct. 1, 2019 transferred to Orange County and released on $15,450 bond.
In January 2020, Cazeau was charged with tampering with a witness in his methamphetamine trafficking case. The witness told the State Attorney’s Office Cazeau contacted her twice while he was out on bond and told her not to cooperate with authorities and she would only do a couple of months in jail The witness told the deputy she had never been in fear of Cazeau before, but she is under the impression he could put a “hit” on her because he has the money to do it and he has shown violence before.
Lake County Clerk of Court online records and Orange County Clerk Court online records revealed all the charges in Cazeau’s 2019 and 2020 cases in both counties have been dropped. On Saturday, LLN contacted Cazeau’s attorney Mark Jackson for an explanation on why the charges were dropped. Jackson, of Orlando, refused to comment.
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Our Editor-in-Chief, Marilyn M. Aciego, began writing for Lake Legal News in 2010. Born and raised in Lake County, she is a graduate of Umatilla High School and Lake-Sumter State College. She started her journalism career at LSSC, where she was editor of both student publications, The Angler and The Odyssey. Her professional career began at the Daily Commercial in 2004 where she covered cops and courts the majority of her time there until she left in 2009. Currently, along with being Editor-in-Chief of Lake Legal News, she is the Florida bureau chief for an international media organization. She has made more than two dozen appearances on live national television, including Nancy Grace and the Greta Van Susteren show, along with her appearance on Evil Twins. Contact her with breaking news, tips, and feedback by sending an e-mail to 352Tips@gmail.com. You can also contact us on our Facebook page — and make sure you “Like” and “Follow us” there. [PHOTO CREDIT: Bonnie Whicher]
