Tarpon man arrested in Paris in rape on fishing trip
He is accused of taking a business associate into the gulf and assaulting her twice and fleeing to France to avoid prosecution.
By JACOB H. FRIES
Published February 26, 2005
CLEARWATER - A Tarpon Springs man who owns a million-dollar Internet company was arrested in Paris on Friday after fleeing the country to avoid a rape charge, authorities said.
Alan B. Curtis, 51, is accused of taking a business associate on a fishing trip into the gulf Sunday morning and then sexually assaulting her twice.
After the first attack, the woman jumped into the water, trying to escape Curtis, said sheriff's Detective Ed Judy. Curtis told her she would freeze, drown or be eaten by sharks. He had already thrown the woman's cell phone overboard, Judy said.
"The fear, for her, was incredible," the detective said. "She could see the buildings, but she knew she couldn't swim that far."
Ultimately, the woman allowed Curtis to pull her back onto his 33-foot Hydro Sport boat, Judy said. Cold and drenched, the woman went into the boat's cabin, where Curtis attacked her again.
What began as a fishing trip at 10 a.m. ended about 10 hours later, after two attacks and a long, back-and-forth struggle, Judy said. Among the woman's injuries were bruises on her head and body.
When Curtis returned the woman to a boat dock in Belleair, he asked whether he could spend the night.
"He wasn't all there," Judy said.
Curtis has been convicted of violent crimes before. In 1994, after more than a decade on the lam, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 1982 stabbing death of a Largo man. The charge was reduced from first-degree murder after the victim's family pushed for leniency.
Then, in 1999, he was arrested on a charge of raping and robbing his girlfriend. He later married the woman and received 10 years' probation and a 20-year suspended prison sentence.
"This is a man who is a very intense personality," Sidney J. Merin, a psychologist, testified in February 2002 during a court hearing to change the terms of Curtis' probation.
"You might characterize him as being somewhat of a stereotype salesman individual," Merin said then, according to court records. "He has a lot of energy, lots of determination, a lot of creativity."
Merin said one of Curtis' Internet businesses - Timeshare Quick Sale Inc. - allowed a healthy outlet for his creativity and urged the court to ease the terms of his probation.
Curtis was arrested by French law enforcement officials Friday morning as he stepped off a Delta flight in Paris. He was expected to be extradited to the United States.