MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested a 23-year-old man on Thursday after accusing him of claiming to be a police officer when he robbed an escort at gunpoint in late February.
Investigators said it happened on Feb. 24 near suspect Joel Xavier McNeil’s home in the county’s unincorporated West Little River area.
According to an MDSO arrest report, the victim told investigators that she had arranged a “quick visit out call” with McNeil early that morning, in which she would drive to him and have sex with him.
Authorities said the woman picked McNeil up near his home and the two drove close to a Dollar General, but McNeil had her turn around and head back to where she picked him up, near his home.
Deputies said at around 7:30 a.m., he had the victim pull over along the side of the road near Northwest 18th Avenue and 93rd Terrace, and “began to rub (her) inner thigh.”
According to the report, after she asked McNeil to pay first, he “stopped, used his phone, then pulled out a pistol from his waistband and pulled the slide backwards to chamber a round.”
The report states that he then told her “that he was police and (he) was going to need her to wait right there.”
Authorities said the woman put her hands up and asked what McNeil what he was doing and he asked her, “Where is the money?”
Deputies said the victim told him she had no money and showed her empty purse. At that point, they said McNeil, listed in the report as 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, grabbed hold of the woman’s jacket as she tried to leave the vehicle and held her at gunpoint.
Authorities said she briefly got back in the vehicle, then ran out again and broke free from McNeil’s grip as another car headed her way.
“The victim then walked in front of the passing vehicle and asked for them to help her and call the police, however the vehicle continued driving away, not assisting (her),” the report states. “The victim then used her cellphone camera to record (McNeil) in her vehicle as he continued to ask her to come back into the vehicle. (He) then jumped over to the drivers side of the vehicle, closed the door and drove off in an unknown direction.”
On Thursday, authorities said McNeil’s father had called MDSO regarding a dispute over McNeil leaving their home in the 1800 block of Northwest 93rd Street.
Deputies said a check revealed an unrelated domestic violence warrant and a probable cause message in connection with the escort robbery.
As four deputies tried taking McNeil into custody, he started “pulling his hands away and rolling on the ground in an effort to avoid being handcuffed,” a separate arrest report states.
He was eventually taken into custody on charges of armed robbery, false imprisonment with a deadly weapon, falsely personating an officer with a deadly weapon in the commission of a felony and resisting an officer without violence.
Appearing in court on Friday, a Miami-Dade judge ordered he be held without bond.
As of Friday afternoon, McNeil was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, online records show.
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