Michael Travis Stephens, a 48-year-old resident of Sedgwick Trail in Palm Coast, is at the Flagler County jail on $125,000 bond after allegedly sexually assaulting his minor stepchild while she feigned sleep.
Before his arrest, Stephens, who was slurring his words, repeatedly told Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies that he would not allow anyone onto his property, that he had done nothing wrong, and that he was done talking to law enforcement. He slammed the door of his house in deputies’ faces.
On the phone later, he told a deputy: “This is the ‘Hurt Locker’” (a reference to the Iraq war movie that includes a scene about a bomb squad failing to defuse a suicide bomber’s belt) and “anyone coming in here isn’t leaving alive.” Stephens kept making statements about knowing when to hold one’s ground and law enforcement not going into his house “without getting hurt.” He was arrested, however, without harm to law enforcement.
Stephens, who remains at the county jail, faces a felony count of lewd or lascivious touching of a minor and a felony count of cruelty toward children.
The alleged victim told deputies that she was sleeping in the garage with the television on, when she woke up to Stephens whispering in her ears that he wanted to feel her private parts. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” he told her. “I’ll give you anything.” He then assaulted her as she pretended to be asleep, slipping his hand beneath her clothes, but she got up when he pulled down her pants. By then her mother had called 911. Deputies saw the girl and her mother run out of the garage screaming when they arrived.
The girl’s mother had been sleeping in the garage as well and corroborated the account to law enforcement. Stephens and the girl’s mother have an infant child in common. A judge imposed a non-contact order on Stephens regarding both the alleged victim and her mother, should he be eligible for pre-trial release.
