The man accused of breaking into two Hollywood homes in an upscale gated community in December and raping a woman at knifepoint will be brought to Broward County to face prosecution, police said.
Shawn Wright, 27, is jailed in Miami-Dade County on narcotics and weapons charges. No date has yet been set for his extradition to the Broward Main Jail, said Miranda Grossman, spokeswoman for the Hollywood Police Department.
The same day the crimes were committed, Dec. 12, in the Hollywood Oaks community in the northwest section of the city, police released crisp and clear surveillance video of the suspect holding a flashlight in his mouth, slipping gloves onto his hands, jimmying open a glass-paneled door and slipping inside.
Hollywood police initially withheld that a rape had been committed until after the South Florida Sun Sentinel made a public records request.
At first they described the crimes as “two occupied residential burglaries and a vehicle burglary” that included “a physical confrontation between the suspect and a victim.”
After receiving the public records request, they revised the information they released to include the sexual battery.
It happened about 4:18 a.m., police said.
At one of the homes, Wright grabbed a woman by the throat, forced her outside, threatened to kill her with a folding knife with a 3-½ inch blade and raped her, an arrest warrant said.
He also stole $8,565 worth of valuables, police said.
His crime spree that morning included the armed burglary of another house in the residential community east of State Road 7, between Stirling and Griffin Roads, where homes typically sell from $1 million to several million dollars, police said and records show.
Wright was armed with the knife, gloves and flashlight when he broke into the second home, a six-bedroom, seven-bathroom house, according to a second arrest warrant.
Before he left the property, he also broke into a car, the warrant said.
Hollywood police did not reveal how they pinpointed Wright as their suspect.
They helped assist in Wright’s arrest on Dec. 18 in Miami-Dade County on a warrant for a home-invasion parole violation in Michigan, Grossman, the Hollywood police spokeswoman, said.
While jailed down south, Miami-Dade police investigators developed narcotics and weapons charges against Wright, she said.
Hollywood police simultaneously worked their case and obtained arrest warrants on Feb. 6 from a Broward County judge, Grossman said.
When Wright is transferred to Broward County, he will face multiple felony charges, including armed sexual battery, armed kidnapping and armed burglary.
tealanez@sun-sentinel.com, 954-356-4542 or Twitter @talanez