Marcel Goncalves has failed to appear for a mandatory court date, and a bench warrant has been issued for his arrest.
Public court records reveal that Goncalves, who was ordered to appear in person for a September 21 pre-trial hearing, will also forfeit his $15,000 bond as a result of his absence.
Goncalves was arrested in March 2018 on felony sexual assault charges stemming from an alleged sexual relationship with a girl who was sixteen years old at the time. According to the police report from the day of the arrest, Goncalves “confessed to having sexual intercourse with [the alleged victim] and stated that he does not know what is wrong with him.” He was 31 at the time of the arrest.
Florida law states that “a person 24 years of age or older who engages in sexual activity with a person 16 or 17 years of age commits a felony of the second degree.”
Prior to the September 21 court date, Goncalves was ordered to appear in person on August 31. He appeared via Zoom after sending in paperwork indicating he’d tested positive for COVID-19.
Goncalves’ failure to appear in court has fueled widespread speculation that he may no longer be in the United States. Following his arrest in 2018, Goncalves was prohibited from leaving Collier County, Florida, and was ordered to surrender his passport, per Collier County court documents. In June 2019, he was granted permission to travel to Dade County and a specified list of other counties he would need to travel through in order to reach his destination.
Goncalves was present at Vagner Rocha’s academy in Broward County, Florida, in February 2021. In a previous statement to the Jiu-Jitsu Times, Rocha said that, following a dispute at the academy between Goncalves and Aaron “Tex” Johnson during that time, he asked both Goncalves and Johnson to “never come back,” adding that he hadn’t seen either of them since that day. The Jiu-Jitsu Times has since received multiple claims that Goncalves had been seen in Campo Grande, Brazil, as recently as mid-July; at the time of this article’s publication, we have not been able to confirm these reports.
The Jiu-Jitsu Times has reached out to the Collier County district attorney’s office and Fight Sports Matriz in Campo Grande for comment. We will update this article if we receive a response.
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