19-year-old man turns himself in for Immokalee sexual battery

A 19-year-old man is in custody after deputies say he attacked a woman walking down Boston Avenue in Immokalee.

According to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, Juan Montez turned himself in Monday night after the sheriff’s office had released a sketch and pictures of him.

The reported assault happened on Boston Avenue at South Fourth Street around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday. A woman said she was walking to work from her apartment when an unknown man suddenly approached on a bicycle and attacked her from behind.

The woman said her assailant punched her in the face, pulled her hair, yanked off her two shirts and attempted to drag her somewhere else. At points during the struggle, the man groped the woman’s breasts and put dirt in her mouth and eyes.

She fought back all the while, and the man only stopped when a car drove by. By that point, the woman had been stripped to her underpants and the man had been trying to remove his own clothes.

According to the victim, who only speaks Spanish, the man only replied to her in English and smelled as if he had been drinking.

Deputies found a backpack containing five tablets worth $200 each during their investigation. They were traced back to a woman who said they were stolen from her car, and security footage showed a man who appeared to be Juan Montez in the parking lot when she said the tablets were stolen.

After Montez turned himself in at a CCSO substation, with a shaved head that differed from the security images of him with long, curly hair, deputies took him to the Immokalee Jail Center.

“I’m glad they caught him, and people like him should be ashamed,” said Ruben Alvarado, a resident of Immokalee.

Montez faces charges of sexual battery, burglary and grand theft.