Key West man is headed to state prison for 30 years

A Key West man is headed to state prison for 30 years after pleading guilty to sexually battering a woman on his liveaboard boat and possessing child pornography.

Jeffrey Sundwall, 47, pleaded to the lesser charge of sexual battery rather than the original charge of sexual assault with violence, and to 20 counts of possessing child porn. Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Mark Jones sentenced him July 26 to 15 years for the sexual battery and 15 years for the child porn, with the terms to run consecutively.

He also pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine and tampering with evidence and received five years on each of those counts to run concurrently with the 30 years.

Sundwall was charged with the sexual assault on March 8, 2017, two days after the woman reported it to police. She identified Sundwall as her attacker and while police detained him on Greene Street on March 6, he tried to hide cocaine he had and was arrested on the drug charge, according to a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office report.

The victim told Sheriff’s Office investigators that the day of the crime, she accompanied Sundwall to his boat, anchored in Key West Harbor near Wisteria Island, in hopes of possibly renting it for housing. Once aboard, she told detectives, Sundwall “placed a device-like item around her neck, and pulled it closed, which blocked her airway.” The device was a “dog-collar type,” she told police.

Sundwall tightened it and the victim eventually lost consciousness at least twice. He then loosened it and she begged for her life, according to the report.

When the sexual assault occurred, the woman “told investigators she believed she was going to die and decided not to struggle” with Sundwall. The victim told police she “was forced to endure several hours of torture.”

After the assault, Sundwall took the woman to Key West proper on his water taxi. A water taxi customer was waiting for a ride from Sundwall and when the victim jumped off the boat, she used the passenger’s phone to call her mother. Police arrived shortly thereafter.

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