Man arrested in Parkland sexual battery was released from prison in March after 30 years

The man who was arrested Friday after allegedly breaking into a Parkland woman’s home and sexually assaulting her is a career criminal offender for whom a prosecutor had sought a life sentence decades ago, records say.

Antonio Doll, 54, was released from prison in March and placed on probation after serving a 30-year sentence for an armed burglary and aggravated assault with a weapon in 1991, Florida Department of Corrections inmate records show. His probation is scheduled to end in 2031.

Doll was 24 years old with a criminal history in 1992 when he was sentenced as a habitual violent felony offender, according to a transcript of his sentencing hearing the South Florida Sun Sentinel obtained through a public records request.

“This is the consequence of letting someone out who, perhaps, should stay in custody,” Sheriff Gregory Tony said at a news conference Monday afternoon about Doll’s arrest. Tony said Doll’s DNA was at the home in Parkland.

On Oct. 23, a Parkland woman came home from work shortly after 4 p.m. and noticed it felt hot inside her home, her air conditioning seemingly turned off, according to a probable cause affidavit. She walked into her family room, and a man hit her and threw her to the floor.

The woman told detectives she had left her home in the morning for work and locked it, the affidavit said. After the man, later identified as Doll, knocked her down in the family room, she noticed a sliding glass door was open.

The man hit her multiple times with an unknown object and said, “I’ll kill you,” the affidavit said. “You’ll bleed out.” He forced her into a bedroom while holding onto her from behind and sexually assaulted her.

She later told detectives in an interview at the Nancy J. Cotterman Center, which houses a certified program for sexual assault victims, that she felt a sharp object that she believed was a knife on her back. The man covered her eyes with a blindfold while he was behind her, the affidavit said.

Further information about the attack is redacted in the affidavit. The man tied the victim’s hands and feet together before he left the room, the affidavit said.

She was able to break her hands free of wiring she was tied with, enough to pull the blindfold down slightly and text someone that she was being robbed and to call 911, according to the affidavit. The person the victim texted called 911, and the victim was also able to contact the Broward Sheriff’s Office from her cellphone. She said she could still hear the suspect inside her home.

When deputies arrived, the man was no longer there, the affidavit said, and her room had been ransacked. One of the victim’s teeth was broken, and she was “still gagged and tied-up by the hands.”

Residents gave detectives their surveillance footage, which showed a man riding a bicycle in the neighborhood wearing a red shirt, black pants and a white hat.

The Sheriff’s Office shared the footage with other agencies to try to identify him, and their investigation found someone who had been seen near the victim’s house “peeping onto several backyards,” the affidavit said.

Other details about the investigation are redacted in the affidavit. Investigators received a lead on Saturday that the suspect may be Doll. The information was given to the Sheriff’s Office Violence Intervention Protective Enforcement Response Unit, or VIPER Unit, who later found Doll at an address in North Miami that is redacted from the affidavit.

The affidavit said at that point Doll was arrested on an active warrant.

Carey Codd, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, said in an email Monday evening that Doll was arrested late Friday for violating his parole, and charges stemming from the incident in Parkland were added Saturday.

“This is something that’s a heinous crime in any community, but most certainly when it’s someone who’s going into their own home and they’ve been violated in that capacity,” Tony said at the news conference.

Tony said investigators do not believe there are other recent victims who Doll allegedly assaulted. Doll took “minor property” from the victim’s home that detectives recovered when he was arrested, Tony said.

Elected officials, religious leaders and others in the Parkland community called Tony personally, he said at the conference, about whether the suspect was in custody.

Doll’s criminal record was lengthy by the time he was in his early 20s.

When Doll was convicted of the armed burglary and aggravated assault in 1992, he had already spent over four years in prison for previous crimes, according to FDOC records. He received a four-and-a-half year sentence in 1988 on multiple burglary and grand theft charges as well as charges of robbery with a gun or deadly weapon, kidnapping and cocaine possession, according to FDOC records.

He had been out of prison for only three months before committing the armed burglary and aggravated assault in 1991 in Miami-Dade County, FDOC records show.

In October 1991, a man was about to get into his truck when he saw two masked men hiding behind another car in his driveway, according to an arrest affidavit. The men pointed guns at the victim, who ran to his neighbor’s house.

The masked suspects caught up with the victim there, and one, identified as Doll, pointed a gun and demanded the victim’s keys while telling the other suspect to shoot the victim, the affidavit said. The victim struggled with Doll, but Doll got away, returned to the victim’s house, entered through his kitchen door, and left with stolen property.

The victim’s neighbor had opened the door once the masked men left and handed the victim a gun. When the victim saw Doll leaving with his belongings, he yelled at the suspect to stop. Doll turned toward him with a gun, the affidavit said, and the victim then shot Doll, who was treated at a hospital.

At Doll’s sentencing hearing in December 1992, his then-defense attorney Arthur Carter gave the judge a letter Doll had written. The letter is not included in the transcript, but Doll’s attorney said it seemed that he wanted “rehabilitation” and asked that his client not be sentenced to life.

“He’s only 24 years old now,” Carter said. “And I think the Court should be lenient and give him years instead of life.”

Prosecutor Trude Koby said Doll’s past convictions showed “a course of conduct that is escalating,” according to the hearing transcript, and that the past crimes were “of an extreme violent nature.” The prosecution was seeking a life sentence “considering how egregious his history has been and that he shows no sign of rehabilitation, and certainly would present a clear danger to the community,” Koby said.

The judge sentenced Doll with his age in mind, according to the transcript.

“The records stinks, Mr. Carter, pretty bad,” the judge said to Doll’s attorney. “He wasn’t hardly out of jail very long before he was back into committing crimes.”

Over the years, Doll filed numerous appeals that were denied, in part arguing that he was wrongfully designated a habitual offender, according to Third District Court of Appeal records. The appeals court issued an opinion in 2017 that directed the clerk to not accept any more pro se filings from Doll pertaining to the case.

As of Monday night, Doll was held in the Broward Main Jail on charges of parole violation, false imprisonment, sexual battery of a victim 18 years or older, sexual assault with a weapon, home invasion with a weapon, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, aggravated battery causing bodily harm or disability, armed burglary, grand theft, possession of a weapon by a violent career criminal and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.

Sun Sentinel staff writer Lisa J. Huriash contributed to this report.