A carjacking suspect who allegedly led police on a pursuit that ended in a rollover crash in Miami Beach and who spent weeks on the run after tampering with his ankle monitor is back in custody, officials said.
Savalas Cigar was booked into a Miami-Dade jail on Thursday, weeks after he'd gone missing while on house arrest, records showed.
Cigar had started house arrest on Sept. 14, after he'd been held in jail dating back to Aug. 12.
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On Sept. 17, the Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Department said he set off a tamper alert on his ankle and had disappeared.
Details on how or where he was found weren't immediately available.
Cigar, 46, is facing grand theft and fleeing and aggravated eluding a police officer after he allegedly carjacked a woman and the next day led a pursuit that ended in a rollover crash in Miami Beach on Aug. 11.
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At the time of the crime, the victim told NBC6 that she was parking her SUV in Miami when a man asked her for money. When she told the man she didn’t have any money, he approached her with a hammer and threatened her, she said.
“I was shaking because the guy was threatening me with a hammer,” Glenda Defas said. “(I said) 'You're going to destroy yourself for this and you'll destroy my life?'"
The victim walked away, but moments later, the man got inside her SUV and took off. Her brother, who is disabled and deaf, was inside the vehicle but got out when the man hopped in.
“My brother came running and said, Glenda, the guy took the car,” she said. “It took seven years to pay this car and finally I had no more payments and this happened… I feel hopeless, I feel destroyed.”
Weeks later, she received the surprise of a lifetime when Rita Case, CEO of Rick Case Automotive, decided to gift her a car after seeing her story on NBC6.
Records showed Cigar was being held without bond Friday morning. Attorney information wasn't available.
