A Tamarac woman told Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies that her ex-boyfriend secretly recorded her private phone conversations and played them back through a speaker inside their home, then planted a tracking device on her car to monitor her movements after their breakup. Deputies arrested 37-year-old Valerio Jeanty of Tamarac and booked him into the Broward County Main Jail following a roughly weeklong investigation that began in late October.
According to an arrest affidavit reported by Tamarac Talk, the woman contacted deputies on October 26, a day after Jeanty showed up at the Family Dollar in Sunrise where she worked. She had been sitting in her parked car with a friend who’d come by to pick up bracelets when, she said, Jeanty climbed into the back seat and began yelling and filming them. The affidavit states that when she got home that same day, Jeanty connected his phone to a Bluetooth speaker and played a recording of a phone conversation she’d had while alone in her car — audio she says she captured on her own phone and later played for a detective.
No Tracker Found, Then One Turns Up
A deputy who checked the woman’s car on October 26 did not find any tracking device, the affidavit states. But the situation escalated two days later, on October 27, when she was touring an apartment to move out of the home she still shared with Jeanty and received a voice message from him saying she was near an AMC theater located next door to the apartment complex — a detail the affidavit does not explain how he knew.
On October 29, while she toured a different apartment complex in Tamarac, Jeanty sent another voice message accusing her of cheating, according to the account relayed by the same outlet. She then drove to BSO’s Tamarac station, where a detective found a black tracking device attached by a magnet to the underside of her vehicle. Shortly after she left the station, she said, Jeanty texted her: “I hope you explain everything good.”
Spare Phone Hidden Under the Passenger Seat
In a November 2 interview with detectives, Jeanty admitted he had hidden a spare phone under the passenger seat of her car to find out whether his ex-girlfriend was dating someone else after their six-year relationship ended, the affidavit states. He reportedly showed detectives his recordings and opened a tracking app on his phone — and the location displayed on the screen matched the BSO facility in Fort Lauderdale where deputies had already taken the tracker they’d recovered from her car. Deputies then arrested Jeanty and took him to the Broward County Main Jail.
What Florida Law Says About Stalking
Florida Statute 784.048 defines stalking as willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly following, harassing, or cyberstalking another person, classifying it generally as a first-degree misdemeanor, according to the Florida Legislature, Online Sunshine. The statute defines a course of conduct as a pattern of acts over any period of time, however short, that shows continuity of purpose, and it notes that a person who makes a credible threat to the person being stalked commits aggravated stalking, a third-degree felony. The same statute allows an officer to make a warrantless arrest when there is probable cause to believe someone violated the stalking law, though that provision is conditional and does not by itself establish the basis for any specific arrest.
The reported timeline of this case does not establish the exact charges filed against Jeanty, whether he has entered a plea, or how the criminal case will ultimately resolve.
