NAPLES — After hitting it off with a woman at an East Naples bar early Thursday, 38-year-old Joe Hanke agreed to take a walk with her on the beach. What he didn’t know was 37-year-old Jacqueline Soto wasn’t there for a romantic interlude.
Instead, Naples police say she sicced her teenage son and his buddies on Hanke in an attempt to steal his wallet at knife-point. "Nothing like this has ever happened to me," said Hanke, who lives in Golden Gate Estates. "The more I look at it, she planned the entire thing."
Hanke said he and a friend went to the Castaways Backwater Cafe on Davis Boulevard around 11 p.m. on Wednesday to play poker. While he was there, he and his friend struck up a conversation with Soto and her friend.
"She came over and sat with us at our table," Hanke said. "She seemed really nice. She talked to the bartender and acted like she knew the bartenders. We weren’t suspicious of her or anything."
Just before he left the bar, Hanke said Soto asked him if he’d like to go for a walk on the beach with her. He agreed, but Hanke said that was all he agreed to. "I’m just one of those guys," he said. "I don’t go home with women at the bar because I don’t know who they went home with the night before."
Driving separately to the beach, Hanke said Soto stopped her van along Mooring Line Drive and they picked up her 16-year-old son Erick Soto and three of his friends, identified in reports as Norberto Pinero, 15, Aaron Torres, 17, and Miguel Angel Baeza, 15.
According to an arrest report, two of the teens told police that around 2 p.m. Jacqueline Soto arrived home, told them she met a man at the bar who had $300, and said they needed to take it. Hanke, who said he actually had $2,500 in his pocket, denied going to Soto’s home.
When they arrived at the beach near the Eighth Avenue North beachend, Hanke said he and Jacqueline Soto went down to the water. Wading calf-deep, Hanke said Jacqueline Soto asked him if he wanted to go swimming, which he did not, considering he had his wallet and a large sum of cash in his pocket.
"I turned to look at the water and the moonlight reflecting in it," Hanke said. "I turned back around and noticed the four gentlemen had a half-moon circle around me. They boxed me into the water.
"She took two steps forward, she said, ‘They’re here for your wallet, I suggest you give it to them,'" Hanke said. "I told her that’s not going to happen."
One of the teens had a knife, Naples police reported. As Hanke backed away, one of the teens punched him in the face, reports said. While walking backwards, Hanke said he fumbled with his Blackberry attempting to call 911, and pulled out a pocket knife he had with him. When Torres came at him, punching him in the face, Hanke said he made a swinging, lunging motion with his pocket knife, striking Torres in the stomach.
When Hanke finally called 911, the four teens fled the scene. Jacqueline Soto didn’t. "She kept coming after me like she was going to get my wallet," he said.
Naples officer Bryan McGinn soon arrived on scene, ordered Soto on the ground and arrested her. She was charged with felony robbery, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor. According to reports, she initially told police that she struck Hanke in the face with a rock when he made a pass at her, but quit talking when she learned Pinero and Torres were talking with police.
"Don’t tell them anything," Soto yelled at Pinero and Torres, according to an arrest report.
"There is no evidence that Mr. Hanke is anything but a victim in this matter," Naples police spokesman Michael Herman said. Reports indicate the teens confirmed Hanke’s version of the attack.
By early Thursday evening police had arrested Baeza on a felony robbery charge and Erick Soto on a felony robbery charge and a misdemeanor battery charge.
Torres and Pinero were interviewed by police, but were not initially charged with a crime. Torres was transported to a local hospital to be treated for a stab wound, police reported.
