$25K reward offered for tips in Central Florida sexual battery cold cases

ORLANDO, Fla. - Central Florida law enforcement agencies on Thursday provided an update on a recent break in several sexual battery cold cases.

Orlando police detectives said they have linked a man to seven rape cases throughout Central Florida over a ten-year period.  Now, a search is on for the suspect accused of terrorizing area communities from 1988 through 1998, and authorities are offering a reward of $25,000 for information that could help lead to an arrest.

Authorities said Leslie Renald Lagrotta, 61, was armed with a weapon "as he committed most of these egregious offenses from three decades ago."

New technology, including forensic genetic genealogy, "and the relentless investigative work" from detectives in the OPD Special Victims Unit who collaborated with the Volusia Sheriff’s Office and Daytona Beach Police Department helped determine that Lagrotta is responsible for three sexual abuse cases reported in the City of Orlando from 1988 to 1989.  Detectives said they have also identified Lagrotta as the suspect in four additional rape incidents in Volusia County from 1992 through 1998.

Orlando police detectives said, back in 1988, one of their investigators was able to lift a palm print from one of the crime scenes.  At the time, those palm prints were not readable like fingerprints. In fact, the technology to read palm prints was not developed until 2005.

In 2019, an Orlando police cold case detective start looking over three unsolved rapes, including the case from 1988.  They sent the palm print off for a possible match.  They said that print was connected to an incident in 2010, during which time Lagrotta was arrested, accused of resisting an officer after he was allegedly found near a woman's window.

Leslie Renald Lagrotta has been named as a suspect in several sexual battery cold cases in Central Florida.

Following that 2010 incident, authorities said Lagrotta cleared his bank account and stopped any contact with his family members

"You're looking at a serial rapist, you're looking at a predator, you're looking at a guy who stole from these women. He stole their sense of self-being when he committed these horrible, horrible acts," said Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood during a news conference on Thursday.  "And like that, like the coward and scumbag he is, he's disappeared."

If anyone has heard from Lagrotta, or knows of his whereabouts, they are asked to reach out to the anonymous tip line, Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS (8477) or www.crimeline.org or to call our non-emergency line at 321-235-5300.

Watch FOX 35 Orlando for the latest Central Florida news.