Documents: Rape Victim's 'STD' Ploy Discouraged Attacker

One of the two Apollo Beach restaurant workers who said they were kidnapped and raped in August told investigators she was able to save herself from further assault by convincing her attacker she had a fatal sexually transmitted disease.

The victim recounted the ploy in a statement to deputies. The statement was among the about 300 pages of documents in the case prosecutors released today.

When one of the attackers attempted to rape her, she said was dying from "a serious STD."

"He didn't believe me at first, but I told him that I was just looking out for him and I had papers to prove it," she wrote in her five-page, handwritten statement.

The statement will likely be used in the case against Rigoberto Moron Martinez, Vicente Reyes-Carbajal and 13-year-old Jose Walle. The trio is charged in the Apollo Beach rapes on Aug. 15 as well as a similar attack at a St. Petersburg restaurant in July. Martinez also faces another rape charge in Hillsborough County.

Nylon rope, black electrical tape and a condom were among items seized during a search of an SUV linked to the rape and kidnapping of the Apollo Beach women, according to the documents released by prosecutors in Hillsborough County.

The evidence and documents were the information typically shared among lawyers prior to trial. The documents also reveal that one of the Apollo Beach victims had duct tape in her hair when deputies found her along Interstate 75 in Manatee County hours after the rape. The women were held for several hours against their will and repeatedly sexually assaulted, then dumped along the highway, where they used a roadside phone to call for help.

One of the women said she had left the restaurant through the back door and was walking to her truck when a man waving a gun ran up to her. She said she screamed, but the man covered her mouth. She said the man demanded money.

The woman said she looked over and saw two men had taken her friend and had restrained her with duct tape.

She said the women were forced into the back seat of her truck, and they and their attackers rode around in the parking lot, with the men demanding money.

The group re-entered the restaurant after the women told the men they had left $300 in the business's cash register.

After failing to get into the restaurant's safe, the men forced the women back into the truck and drove them to a side road off Big Bend Road, where the women were forced out of the truck. The woman said that is where the first sexual assaults of both women occurred.

The woman said she and her friend begged to be left there. But they were forced back into the truck. Her friend was raped repeatedly while the men drove around the area, she said.

Authorities later discovered her burned-out truck in Manatee County.

The documents released today also reveal injuries suffered by the victims. One victim had wounds and bruising to her neck and arm as well as teeth marks. The other victim had cuts and bruises on her hands, arm and back.

The investigative reports said the victims were able to readily identify Martinez and Reyes-Carbajal as their attackers for a photographic lineup. Authorities said they were able to match DNA evidence recovered during the investigation with samples obtained from Martinez and Walle. Clothing seized from Martinez also matched that worn in a bank surveillance video copied by authorities. One of the victims said the men took them by her bank and tried to access her credit-card account.

Prosecutors also released 40 pages of evidence relating to an armed carjacking on Aug. 20 in Ruskin. Walle and Reyes-Carbajal are charged in that case.

The incidents generated considerable finger-pointing when it was revealed Martinez was in the country illegally and had been arrested on misdemeanor charges in Hillsborough County. He was released from jail nine days before the Apollo Beach attacks after posting bail.