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Background: The InterContinental hotel located on Chopin Plaza in Miami, Florida (Google Maps). Inset: Sarah Jean Tavano (Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation).
A Florida woman is facing allegations of luring men to their hotel rooms under the guise of romantic intentions, only to drug, rob, and then escape from them.
Sarah Jean Tavano, aged 39, is confronting multiple charges, such as strong-arm robbery, organized fraud, second-degree grand theft, and burglary of an occupied dwelling. She has been held by Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation since her arrest on Sunday.
According to an arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, an incident occurred on December 12 when a man, left alone at Sugar nightclub in Miami after his friends departed, encountered a woman wearing a black shirt, blue jeans, and black flip-flops. After multiple interactions, she agreed to join him at his hotel room under the assumption of consensual sexual activity.
The woman, who is claimed to be Tavano, accompanied the man to his room at the InterContinental hotel on Chopin Plaza, near the Miami waterfront. After sharing a drink with her, the man started to feel extremely unwell, experiencing symptoms like nausea, weakness, and dizziness, eventually losing consciousness, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit further states that the man did not regain consciousness until approximately 7:25 the following morning, December 13. Upon waking, he discovered that his gold Rolex Day-Date 36 mm wristwatch, valued at around $38,000, along with approximately $1,500 in cash, had vanished.
The man called the police and gave them the serial number of his watch, telling them “he does not normally experience these symptoms from casual alcohol consumption.” Over the course of the next week, he detailed “prolonged symptoms of nausea, extreme weakness, dizziness, and vomiting that persisted,” stating that he believed “he had been drugged by the female offender.”
Investigators determined that the watch had indeed been stolen and pawned at a local store. The affidavit added that investigators reviewed surveillance footage from the hotel and “immediately recognized the female as Sarah Tavano, whom [police] suspected from two prior investigations.”
As authorities tell it, Tavano had a modus operandi — “male victims were brought back to hotel rooms under the pretense of consensual sex, consumed drinks, lost consciousness, and later discovered property stolen.”
More than a month later, On Jan. 18, just after midnight, security at Sugar nightclub told detectives that their suspect was back there. Authorities said she was “already known to have probable cause for arrest in a separate case.” Officers detained her, allegedly finding in her possession suspected cocaine, suspected the drug Seroquel — which can cause fainting — and a bottle of Jagermeister “containing a cloudy liquid with visible powder residue settled at the bottom.”
The investigator noted that “the presence of prescription medication mixed into alcoholic beverages is consistent with methods used to incapacitate victims and render them unconscious.”
Tavano was arrested and booked into jail.