Orange County

Orange County sexual predator in and out of custody for decades arrested again

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — An Orange County sexual predator, who’s been in and out of prison and jail since the 1980s on various charges related to exposing himself, was arrested again last week.

Michael Knight last got out of state prison in 2017. He was arrested in 2019 in Volusia County, in Orange County in 2020, in Ocoee last month and again last week.

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The charges range from lewd and lascivious exhibition to indecent exposure, and some cases involving children.

WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer said the recidivism rate for people involved in these kinds of crimes is high.

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“I’ve heard this from defendants that this type of behavior is a compulsion,” he said.

Knight was convicted on three cases of indecent exposure in the 1980s, and he’s spent time behind bars in the 1990s and 2000s as well.

In 2013, in Orlando, near the SoDo Target, when he was arrested for exposing himself records show he said, “Officer, I’m not harming anybody I just crave it.”

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He referred to craving it as like people craving chocolate.

In 2020, he was arrested for the same thing near the entrance to Universal Orlando and told police he couldn’t help himself and had a problem.

He was arrested in November after witnesses said he was sitting on a sign outside Burger King in Ocoee exposing himself. After getting out of jail, he was arrested on a similar incident from earlier in the year outside a coin laundry business in Orange County.

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“Not only does the defendant hurt himself, he hurts others, maybe not physically, but what emotional problems might he bring to someone in engaging in this type of behavior,” Sheaffer said.

Knight remains in jail now on a $1,500 bond.

A woman who identified herself as Knight’s caregiver said jail isn’t working and that Knight needs long-term treatment.

Sheaffer said that’s not always easy to get.

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“He’d have to be placed on probation, then they have the ability to order him into therapy, and to deal with a problem,” Sheaffer said.

And he said often people who don’t get that kind of court-ordered treatment won’t seek it on their own even if they need it.

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Jeff Deal

Jeff Deal, WFTV.com

I joined the Eyewitness News team as a reporter in 2006.

Sarah Wilson

Sarah Wilson, WFTV.com

Sarah Wilson joined WFTV Channel 9 in 2018 as a digital producer after working as an award-winning newspaper reporter for nearly a decade in various communities across Central Florida.