The other shoe may have dropped in the saga of Lilly Everett’s kidnapping earlier today. Carlos Lesters, the boyfriend of Lilly’s mother, Megan Everett, was arrested for aiding and abetting Everett’s efforts to keep Lilly in hiding for over a year. The arrest comes just four days after Lilly was returned to her home near Fort Lauderdale.
For those who missed it, Everett started dating Lesters when Lilly was eight months old. Lesters quickly turned Everett’s head with extreme right-wing views. By the time Lesters was finished with her, Everett was a fanatical Second Amendment absolutist who wanted Lilly homeschooled in order to ensure she would learn about the Confederacy, not black history. She was also adamant that Lilly not be vaccinated.
Those weren’t the only things that worried Lilly’s father, Robert Baumann. Lesters’ house in Sunrise was not carpeted or babyproofed, and he and Everett were frighteningly careless with guns and ammunition. Numerous pictures on Everett and Lesters’ Facebook profiles showed guns within easy reach of Lilly. Lilly’s grandmother, Pam, and aunt, Stephanie, were alarmed enough that in a radical departure from usual practice, they supported Baumann’s efforts to get full custody of Lilly. However, a Broward County judge opted to give Everett and Baumann joint custody.
A month after the hearing, Baumann drove to Lesters’ house to pick Lilly up for a week. Lesters greeted him, and told him that Everett had taken off–with Lilly in tow. Everett left behind a note saying that she was not willing to let a court tell her how to raise Lilly. The case dragged along at a snail’s pace, presumably because of the fact that Lilly was with her mother. However, less than 24 hours after Lilly was profiled on CNN’s “The Hunt with John Walsh,” Everett was tracked to a rental house near Palatka in north Florida; her landlady had seen the profile a day earlier and turned Everett in.
At the time, police said that Lesters was cooperating with the investigation, and was not a suspect. It’s not that Lesters had a choice to cooperate; from where I’m sitting he could have easily been arrested for child endangerment. Well, that changed this morning. Pam Everett buzzed me on Facebook to tell me that sometime around 9 a. m., Lesters was arrested while on his way to work. He is currently facing charges of kidnapping, interference with custody and concealing a minor contrary to a court order–the same state-level charges that Everett faces.
Sunrise police spokeswoman Cindi McCue appeared to confirm what I have suspected from the start–that Lesters was aiding and abetting his girlfriend. She said that police had evidence that Lesters went to see Everett “on multiple occasions.” Additionally, they have evidence that despite his insistence that he didn’t know where Everett was and had no contact with her, Lesters knew where Everett was all along.
I spoke with Pam Everett earlier today, and she told me that police obtained a welter of evidence that shows Lesters was aiding and abetting Lilly’s disappearance. They apparently obtained cell phone records from Lesters and Everett, and also spoke with several people who lived near Everett when she was on the lam in north Florida. Those neighbors recognized Lesters’ truck from the numerous times he made the 280-mile trek. Add that up, and Lesters is screwed eight ways to Sunday. If I were his lawyer, I’d tell him that his best option would be to plead guilty and testify against Everett.
Hopefully this won’t be the last arrest related to this case. Anyone and everyone who helped Everett plan her escape, and also helped her while she was on the run, better have lawyers on speed dial. Meanwhile, Lilly is now safe and sound with her father in Davie. Pam Everett tells me that Lilly is “a mess,” which is not surprising given what she’s endured over the last year. She thinks it’s going to take “a while to bring her back to normal.” I’ve spoken a lot with Pam and Stephanie over the last year, and it sounds like Lilly is getting a lot of love right now. She’s going to need it.
