Driver Charged After Bystanders Report Woman Forced Into Car on Boca Raton Roadway

Gerald R. Broughton (Photo: Palm Beach County Jail)

A local man was arrested early Oct. 28 on allegations that he grabbed a woman, forced her back into a car and followed her along a Boca Raton roadway during an Oct. 19 incident that bystanders reported to police, according to a Boca Raton Police report.

Gerald R. Broughton, 58, of Lighthouse Point, faces charges of false imprisonment, battery on a person 65 or older and violating a domestic violence injunction. Records show he was held without bond on all three counts. Arrest records say he was taken into custody at 2:23 a.m. along NW 2nd Avenue.

A witness called police and told them she saw a dark SUV stop erratically in the southbound left-turn lane of NW 2nd Avenue. She told officers a man in a pink button-down shirt and shorts got out, approached the passenger side and tried to close the door on the limbs of a woman seated inside. The witness said he then physically pushed the woman’s arms and legs into the vehicle to shut the door. The witness began recording on her cellphone.

The witness said the woman later got out and walked east toward a 7-Eleven at 1300 NW 2nd Avenue. The man followed, and when the woman began to run, he grabbed her by the arm, the witness told police. The video was submitted to police as evidence.

A second witness told police he saw the man shove a woman into a vehicle while he waited at the traffic light. He said he later saw the man place his hands on the woman’s neck on the sidewalk in front of the convenience store. The witness said he intervened and told the man to leave her alone, and the woman asked him to call police.

Police located the SUV’s owner, a woman who matched the description given by the witnesses. She initially told an officer she had been in a verbal disturbance with a man she called “Michel,” but that nothing physical occurred and she was not hurt, the report states. After the officer reviewed the video and said the man resembled Broughton’s Florida driver license photo, the woman confirmed it was Broughton and gave a sworn statement, according to the report.

In that statement, the woman told police she met Broughton at her workplace when he asked to retrieve a piece of property. She said she let him drive her car so they could talk. At the traffic light, she decided she did not want to stay in the vehicle, she told police.

She said that when she tried to leave, Broughton got out, stood in front of the passenger door and used his weight to keep her from exiting. She told police he reached into the vehicle and grabbed her hair while repeatedly asking her to talk about a personal matter. She said he moved away after she relented, and followed her toward the 7-Eleven, where he tried to embrace her after she began to cry. She told police the embrace was not against her will, and that he then walked away.

An officer noted a scratch with fresh blood on the back of the woman’s left hand and another on her right ankle. She attributed the hand scratch to cleaning and the ankle scratch to a fallen leaf, according to the report. The officer wrote that the ankle injury was consistent with the first witness’s account of the car door being closed on her limbs.

Police said a records check showed Broughton was the subject of a domestic violence injunction, served June 23 by Lighthouse Point police. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the order remained valid, according to the report. Among other restrictions, it bars him from communicating with the person it protects.

Broughton remained lodged in the Palm Beach County Jail on Thursday in lieu of $35,000 combined bail for the three separate charges.