BY DAVID OVALLE
Hamburgers, $20 and some clothes.
That’s what detectives say Alejandra Carvajal gave serial rape suspect Reynaldo E. Rapalo the night after he escaped from jail. But there is something that Carvajal claims she didn’t give Rapalo.
He wanted sex.
‘She said, `No, we’re not married,’ '' said Miami-Dade Detective Mary Walters, a Police Department spokeswoman.
Detectives arrested Carvajal, 45, late Tuesday, charging with her with being an accomplice after the fact to a sexual battery. She was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, the same jail from which Rapalo escaped last month, sparking a furious six-day manhunt.
Late Wednesday, detectives made a second arrest in connection with Rapalo’s escape: local disc jockey Antonio Discua, 53, who lives in the 6400 block of McClellan Street in Hollywood. He faces the same charge as Carvajal.
Police described Discua as ''an apparent close friend’’ of Rapalo’s who spoke with the escapee by telephone on a number of occasions. Discua ''had intentions on helping Rapalo by providing money and transportation,’' Miami-Dade Detective Roy Rutland said in a press release.
Discua was arrested at his home about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents, Rutland said.
No further arrests were currently anticipated, he added.
Carvajal, wearing a purplish blouse, appeared in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Wednesday, appearing flustered in the face of felony charges. She couldn’t remember her address when asked.
Bail was set at $20,000, but she had not posted it by late Wednesday. She could face up to 30 years in prison.
Like Rapalo, Carvajal is here illegally from Honduras and faces deportation, police said.
Her story drew no pity from Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle, who blasted Carvajal for keeping silent about Rapalo while hundreds of police officers scoured Miami-Dade County for him.
''She harbored him; he was a violent fugitive,’' Fernández Rundle said. ``And an entire community was gripped in fear.’'
Rapalo is accused of raping seven females, ages 11 to 79. He was originally arrested by Miami police in September 2003 after another massive manhunt.
He and another inmate used ropes fashioned from bedsheets to scale down multiple stories of TGK on Dec. 20. The other inmate broke his ankles and was nabbed quickly.
Rapalo eluded police for six days, living mostly in a makeshift shelter in a wooded area by railroad tracks. He was caught after being spotted at a Southwest Miami-Dade strip mall.
Carvajal was not in the same situation as Rapalo’s former girlfriend, Araminta Rodríguez. She had a tormented relationship with Rapalo -- who was arrested in July 2002 after threatening to bash down the door of their Little Havana house and kill her with a hammer.
But the police say that Carvajal was a longtime acquaintance whom he phoned for help from a gas station the night he escaped from TGK. He told her about his escape. ''She felt sorry for him,’' Miami-Dade Detective Ralph Duran said.
Detectives say that Carvajal took a bus the following night from her Little Havana apartment to Rapalo’s makeshift shelter around Southwest 69th Avenue and Bird Road.
After giving him the food, money and clothes, Carvajal talked with Rapalo for several hours, she told police. She refused his sexual advances, she claimed.
After Carvajal left, she threw her cellphone into a garbage can, fearing that police would track her calls. Police declined to say how they identified her.
Her brother-in-law, Sergio Aguilar, said she had rented a room from him for several months. She has three children in Honduras and worked cleaning houses in Miami Beach.
Aguilar said he did not know the extent of her relationship with Rapalo.
Miami Herald (http://www.herald.com/)