Man charged with rape and stalking of woman he met in class

Staff report

Updated on November 6 with bail information.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Anghelo Luisin Ita Durand, 30, has been charged with sexual battery and aggravated stalking after allegedly raping another student and then continuing to contact her after she asked him to stop.

The victim told a Gainesville Police Department (GPD) officer that the incident happened in July, but she did not report it at the time because she was not ready to talk about it with anyone.

She said she met Ita Durand at the University of Florida and had never been involved in a romantic or sexual relationship with him, but on the date of the rape, she had bought some furniture and was struggling to assemble it because she didn’t have the right tool. She asked Ita Durand to help her assemble the furniture, and after he did that, they went to a bar and had a couple of beers. She said when they returned to her apartment, they had a conversation at her dinner table, and she said she never gave Ita Durand a reason to believe she was interested in him.

The victim said Ita Durand suddenly grabbed her and forced her onto her bed, where he raped her while she felt helpless and unable to defend herself; she said that once she realized what was happening, she begged him to use a condom, but he refused.

After the incident, the victim said, Ita Durand kept sending her messages, and she told him to stay away from her and stop messaging her; she also blocked him on several messaging apps.

A few days after she blocked him, he allegedly showed up at her apartment, banging on her door and window, and GPD officers asked him to leave and told him he would be arrested if he returned.

A few days after he went to her apartment, she said she saw him following her on campus, and while she was inside a building, a friend sent her pictures of Ita Durand waiting outside the building.

The victim reported these incidents to the University of Florida Police Department, which initiated a Title IX report, and she showed the GPD officer a letter from the Title IX office, acknowledging receipt of her complaint.

A friend of the victim told the GPD officer that she once walked home with the victim and saw Ita Durand following them; when he saw that the victim was not alone, he reportedly backed off, and the victim went to a library, hoping Ita Durand would leave. The friend said she got on a bus but had to come back because she’d left something in a classroom, and when she returned about 30 minutes later, she saw Ita Durand sitting on the steps outside the library, waiting for the victim to come out. The friend took pictures of him and sent them to the victim.

The GPD officer interviewed Ita Durand on October 15 at GPD Headquarters, and post Miranda, he reportedly said that he knows the victim, but they’ve never been romantically involved and had only gone on one date. He described the evening on which he helped her assemble furniture and went to a bar and said that when they returned to her apartment, he expressed his feelings for her and they had sex. He said she blocked him about three days later, and he tried to call her “to clarify what happened and to clear the air,” but she didn’t answer. He said no complaints about him had ever been filed at UF.

Ita Durand reportedly said he didn’t use a condom because he didn’t have one, and he admitted that the victim had told him that if he didn’t have a condom, “it was better to not have sex.”

Ita Durand reportedly admitted that he knew the victim did not want any contact with him, but “he believed that it was not ideal to conclude in such a way.” He denied stalking or following the victim, and when the officer showed him pictures of him waiting for her outside a building, he said he was not in front of the building but was waiting for a bus.

Ita Durand reportedly admitted that he’d gone to her apartment after she asked him to stay away from her, but she didn’t open the door. He said the apartment complex’s security contacted him and asked him to leave; he said he thought the victim’s neighbors had called security because he was knocking on the victim’s door (according to the GPD officer, it was the victim who called 911). However, he said he didn’t know he had been trespassed by the police, even when the officer told him it was a K-9 unit and they had to take him to the ground.

The officer asked Ita Durand why he sexually battered the victim after she said it would be better to not have sex if he didn’t have a condom, and Ita Durand was reportedly “adamant that it didn’t happen that way” and said he “acted by impulse and not by consent from the [victim].”

Ita Durand has been charged with sexual battery and aggravated stalking. He has no local criminal history. Judge Susan Miller-Jones ordered him held without bail pending a hearing on a motion from the State Attorney’s office to hold him without bail until trial. On November 6, Judge Denise Ferrero denied the motion to hold him without bail, setting bail at $200,000 and requiring that he be fitted with a GPS monitor before release; he is also required to surrender his Peruvian passport and may not leave the country without permission.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.