He raped a tourist at a Key West landmark. Now, he’s going to prison
In September 2021, a tourist was sexually assaulted twice in one day in Key West — and the second attack was caught on the live webcam that live streams the famous Southernmost Point buoy.
On Thursday, a Monroe County judge sentenced one of the defendants, the man who raped the 34-year-old woman at the landmark, to 10 years in state prison, followed by five years of probation.
Kerry Calvin Gasag, 39, pleaded guilty to sexual battery, false imprisonment and evidence tampering. Had he gone to trial and a jury found him guilty, he faced up to 25 years in prison, said Assistant Monroe County State Attorney Joseph Mansfield.
The crime was amplified by Gasag initially being perceived as the woman’s protector, interrupting her being raped by someone else on Fleming Street just moments earlier, only to make her into his own victim when they arrived at the Southernmost Point, according to police.
A man in Boston watching the webcam saw the attack unfold and called Key West police to report it.
But police didn’t find her until after the attack, when she ran down the street wearing only a top, according to the arrest report.
Officers took her to Lower Keys Medical Center and later interviewed her in her hotel Casa Marina hotel room, about a half a mile down South Street from the Southernmost Point. The Miami Herald is not naming the woman.
She told police her evening started with dinner on Duval Street, where she drank several glasses of wine. She told police that after dinner, she walked a few blocks to a bar, adding “a large portion” of her memory is missing after she arrived at the bar.
She did remember meeting a man at the bar and getting into his car, but got out after feeling unsafe, she told police.
Shortly after getting out of the car, however, a man grabbed her and forced her to the ground in a wooded area on Fleming Street and sexually assaulted her. The woman told police the man raped her for several minutes but she ran away when “for an unknown reason” he turned away from her.
Police said the man who raped her on Fleming Street is Jorge Calderon Nunez, 32. His case in the attack is pending, said Mansfield, the prosecutor. He’s being held in county jail on a bond of $225,000.
Detectives say a video found on the woman’s iPhone filled in the blanks in the victim’s memory and detailed the horror that took place as she was discovered by Gasag and afterward.
In the video, a woman is heard crying and a man, Gasag, is heard telling her to “stop,” officers said in their report. Gasag then says, “stop means stop,” and tells the woman to get up off the ground.
The woman told police that she initially thought that Gasag, who told her his name was Calvin, rescued her from her attacker.
But she was being led further into harm’s way.
Her cellphone video continued to record, picking up Gasag telling the woman he’d take her back to Casa Marina. On the way, he asked her if she wanted to have sex, according to police. Officers said in their report the woman “adamantly” told him no, and she wanted out of the car immediately.
Gasag responded that he could have already had sex with her in the bushes and wanted to know why she didn’t want to be with him. According to police, the woman got out of the car in a panic, and that’s when her phone stopped recording.
The webcam, however, pieced together the rest of the story, according to police. It showed Gasag putting his hand over the woman’s mouth and dragging her behind the Southernmost Point buoy.
After a few minutes, police say the video shows the woman emerge partially clothed from behind the buoy, fall to the ground and then sprint east on South Street.
The webcam also filmed Gasag pick up a pair of jean shorts, get into his car and drive away, police say.
Police said in their report that Gasag was “clearly identifiable” in the video and they arrested him at his Northside Drive apartment.
