Fort Lauderdale Man Arrested For 2nd Sex Attack In 10 Months
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FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – Police say a man accused of beating a South Florida visitor who refused his sexual advances has done it before.
In the early morning hours of October 15, a woman told police she was visiting Fort Lauderdale with her cousin. They hung out and enjoyed the city. But, at some point, she got separated from her cousin. That's when police say after a series of events she wound up nearly raped along a stretch of Andrews Avenue near Broward Boulevard by 32-year-old Kirk Gage, a man well known to Fort Lauderdale Police.
Gage is accused of attacking two women in Fort Lauderdale in the past 10 months. Fort Lauderdale Police say the latest brutal attack occurred earlier in October. In the area of Andrews Avenue near Fort Lauderdale City Hall, police say Gage pursued a woman he shared a ride with and tried to sexually assault her. The woman resisted.
The police report says Gage "smashed the victim's head into the concrete and the metal fencing that was near her in the dirt."
The woman told police she ran to a nearby McDonald's for help. Police arrested Gage a short time later at his nearby home.
Gage "denied to police all allegations of attempting to sexually assault the victim or ever attacking the victim," the police report says.
However, the report adds that "as the defendant was showing detectives his phone, the victim's phone number was observed within the call log."
Police said Gage could not give an explanation for how the woman's phone number got into his phone. Gage appeared in court on the charges about a week ago and the charges from the October case are strikingly similar to Gage's arrest from last December.
In that case, the victim told police she also met Gage in downtown Fort Lauderdale along Himmarshee Street. That victim told police she willingly went back to Gage's apartment to smoke marijuana. She said Gage sexually assaulted her and took naked pictures of her.
She told police "she tried to take the phone from gage and Gage started to choke her to the point that she was unable to breathe and felt like she was going to pass out."
Gage told police the pair had consensual sex.
There was a third case from 2015 that prosecutors declined to pursue. Gage was arrested after a woman told police Gage raped her by holding her at knifepoint, a knife that she carried for safety.
"I had a blade to my throat," the woman told police, according to the police report, "and I had to be subservient so I don't be murdered."
