Staff Report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Anghelo Luisin Ita Durand, 30, faces charges of sexual battery and aggravated stalking following accusations of raping a fellow student and persistently contacting her despite her requests to cease communication.
The victim disclosed to the Gainesville Police Department (GPD) that the incident occurred in July. She initially refrained from reporting it, as she wasn’t ready to discuss the matter at the time.
She recounted meeting Ita Durand at the University of Florida, clarifying that they had no prior romantic or sexual relationship. On the day of the alleged assault, she had purchased furniture and needed assistance assembling it due to the lack of proper tools. She asked Ita Durand for help, and after the task was completed, they went to a bar for a couple of beers. Upon returning to her apartment, they talked at the dining table, and she emphasized that she never indicated any romantic interest toward him.
The victim stated that Ita Durand abruptly grabbed her and forced her onto the bed, where he allegedly raped her. She described feeling powerless and unable to defend herself. As the situation unfolded, she pleaded with him to use a condom, but he refused.
Following the incident, she reported that Ita Durand continued to send her messages. She instructed him to leave her alone and stop the communication, even blocking him on multiple messaging platforms.
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; if the judge denies the motion, bail will be set at that hearing.
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.
