[PHOTO CREDIT: Lake County Sheriff’s Office]
[Original Publish Date: 04/22/21]
EUSTIS, Florida — A Eustis man was released from the Lake County Jail Friday on $10,000 bond after he was involved in a road rage incident Thursday with his pregnant wife.
Eustis Police officers received information that Emmanuel Travis Cazeau, 37, was in an older blue Ford Explorer chasing his wife, who was driving a 2014 Chevy Traverse, according to an arrest affidavit. 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 and one officer spoke with the victim, while two other officers spoke with Cazeau near Magnolia Avenue and Exeter Street.
The victim told police she called her husband several times because he had their shared vehicle and she needed to take their child to the doctor. When Cazeau finally answered around 12:30 p.m. Thursday, he was pulling into the driveway and she hung up on him, due to him being home, according to the affidavit. Cazeau then confronted her and asked why she hung up and what she was hiding. He is alleged to have snatched her phone and started going through it as he accused her of cheating. She asked for her phone back several times and became upset. She grabbed Cazeau’s phone and threw it on the ground, breaking it.
The victim began to walk into the house and Cazeau followed her and grabbed her right hand, twisting it; he then slammed her into a wall and bit her right forearm, she told police. Cazeau’s sister helped the victim get away from him and the two women left the home and went to a relative’s house. Cazeau showed up at the relative’s house and the women left and went to Eustis Elementary to pick up the victim’s children. Cazeau’s sister exited the vehicle to get the children and Cazeau showed up at the school, causing the victim to abruptly leave. His sister was able to put two of the children in the victim’s vehicle before she left but was left at the school with an additional child.
The victim left with Cazeau following her and he intentionally struck her driver’s side rear fender with two children in the vehicle. She fled and was stopped by police. The victim, who had visible bruises and bitemarks, complained of pain and contractions and told police she is 8.5 months pregnant. Cazeau is the father.
Cazeau told police the victim attacked him and shattered his phone after he confronted her about cheating. He said he followed her because she had his glasses and phone and when they left, she “kept playing with him in traffic like she was going to stop and give him his property,” the arresting officer noted in the affidavit.
A witness who was in the vehicle with Cazeau told a story similar to Cazeau’s and his sister, who was with the victim, told a story similar to the victim’s. Cazeau was found to be the primary aggressor and arrested for battery on a pregnant female and child endangerment.
Lake Legal News reported on Cazeau in 2019 and 2020. In 2019, Cazeau was pulled over by a Lake County Sheriff’s 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. He also told her the SAO was threatening him with a life sentence because he had enough methamphetamine to kill six people, according to the arrest affidavit. 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.
A check of Lake County Clerk of Court online records and Orange County Clerk Court online records Friday revealed all the charges in Cazeau’s 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 Tavares, declined 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]
