LCSO knew of sexual abuse allegations before murder

FORT MYERS, Fla. Documentation of years of alleged sexual abuse on a 17-year-old girl accused of murder wound up in the hands of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

But the sheriff’s office has produced no record showing it investigated the girl’s claims.

“LCSO said they never got the report so her claim never got investigated,” Assistant State Attorney Hamid Hunter said. “… This was months before the murder. Never got investigated.”

Lavaya May is facing a second-degree murder charge in the July 2016 death of 58-year-old Buckingham resident Ted Lee, whose body was found outside a Manatee County church. A co-defendant, Hunter Michael Tyson, 24, of North Fort Myers, was sentenced earlier this month to 40 years in prison.

Kristianna Soto, an attorney for May, said Lee had molested May for nearly a decade.

“Lavaya May reported being sexually battered by Ted Lee from the age of 8 on, if not earlier,” Soto said. “She reported that fully in Pinellas County in March of 2016. It did get transferred to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.”

May talked to a child protective investigator in Pinellas County about an inappropriate relationship she was having with Lee, a report provided by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office shows.

That report is dated March 25, 2016, months before the murder.

Lee would touch her inappropriately, have sex with her and buy her alcohol while she was at his Buckingham home, May said, according to the report.

A fax receipt shows the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office forwarded the report to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office on March 28, 2016.

The Lee County office of the Department of Children and Families closed its investigation because it believed the Lee County Sheriff’s Office had assumed a criminal investigation, Hunter said.

May’s defense team is seeking to use the information as evidence in her trial, which is set to begin in August.

“How the ball got dropped on this level of an investigation is relevant,” Soto said.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged it received the report that the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office sent, but didn’t say when it was received or whether it led to an investigation.