TAMARAC, Fla. – Deputies identified the two 22-year-old suspects who are facing federal charges Thursday after a tri-county police chase in South Florida and a crime spree that included stealing a Lexus, a Tesla, and a Rolex.
The intense effort to catch Edward Foster and Matthew Geimer, Jr., two fugitives with a history of weapons charges, involved several local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies on Wednesday, in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward counties.
Foster and Geimer were already fugitives when detectives identified them as suspects in an armed robbery in the city of North Miami’s Key Stone Islands community. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, the victim’s neighbor said they stole a Rolex watch and the victim’s daughter recorded the robber’s license plate.
The robbers were in a stolen white Lexus on North Bay Shore Drive after 12 p.m., and later turned up in the city of Opa-locka, according to the North Miami Police Department. During the chase, they fled northbound to the city of Boca Raton, and turned back south on the Turnpike, police said.
At about 2 p.m., Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies reported the Lexus was in their jurisdiction. The driver exited the expressway and headed to the city of Tamarac. While on Commercial Boulevard, they attempted to steal another car and failed, deputies said.
Armed with a long gun, and with law enforcement helicopters above them, the duo then swiftly stole a white Tesla from a man and drove westbound on Commercial Boulevard, south of the city of North Lauderdale and west of Fort Lauderdale.
A law enforcement agent in an unmarked pickup truck crashed into the Tesla and blocked it from going forward at about 2:15 p.m. near the intersection of Commercial Boulevard and Rock Island Road, according to Carey Codd, a BSO spokesman.
Despite being surrounded at gunpoint, the two suspects jumped out of the crashed Tesla’s driver-side door, leaving an assault weapon behind, and quickly ran away from Commercial Boulevard, deputies said.
The fugitives went their separate ways. One of them was in police custody before the other approached a nearby canal, south of the scene of the crash, took off his shoes and some of his clothes, and jumped into the water. He swam across and ran through residential yards in Tamarac.
Then he ran into an opportunity. Gisela Taveras had her garage door open, so he quickly sneaked into her house in the area of Northwest 54 Street and 49 Way.
“I was scared,” Taveras, 71, said in Spanish.
Maureen Gavlick, a neighbor, said Taveras is a seamstress, and she always leaves her garage door open when she is sewing. Taveras said she saw the man was soaking wet and catching his breath when he ran into her kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took a drink of her orange juice.
”What are you doing here? Get out,” Taveras told the intruder, according to her daughter, Eileen Taveras, who added her mother then ran out of her house and rushed to flag down a police officer.
A BSO SWAT team surrounded Taveras’s house, and the intruder surrendered at about 2:30 p.m. Tamarac Fire Rescue personnel took him to a nearby hospital for a checkup before deputies drove him to Broward’s main jail in Fort Lauderdale, according to Codd.
Authorities reported no one was injured during the high-speed chase that also involved Florida Highway Patrol troopers and the FBI. The U.S. Marshals Office was the arresting agency for both Foster and Geimer, BSO correction records show.
Deputies booked them at Broward’s main jail for armed carjacking, and they remained there Thursday afternoon without bond on U.S. Marshals Office holds. BSO deputies who were involved anticipate they will face additional charges, according to Codd.
Geimer, a convicted felon accused of violating his probation, has a history of weapon-related charges as a teen growing up in South Florida, records show. Foster, who has a history of arrests in Opa-locka and Homestead, is awaiting trial in a pending case and a judge recently revoked his bond status and issued an arrest warrant.
Records show fugitives’ long criminal history before crime spree
WANTED FUGITIVES: GEIMER
Florida Department of Corrections records show Geimer violated a Nov. 4-Nov. 11, 2027 probation term, after three convictions for cases in Miami-Dade and Broward counties in 2018.
In 2019, Geimer was convicted and sentenced to a five-year probation term for an armed robbery in Miami-Dade on Feb. 4, 2018 — when he was just 17 years old, FDLE records show.
Last year, a judge sentenced Geimer to probation in two cases in Broward: A three-year, eight-day term was for an armed carjacking on Jan. 17, 2018, and a two-year term was for a burglary on Jan. 31, 2018.
WANTED FUGITIVES: FOSTER
Foster also has a record of arrests in Miami-Dade that includes a pending Dec. 26 case for carrying a concealed weapon. His most recent hearing was on April 3 when a judge revoked his bond and issued a warrant for his arrest.
Police officers had also arrested Foster on Feb. 13, in Opa-locka, accusing him of a weapons charge and resisting arrest, but prosecutors dropped the case on April 3, records show.
There were two other Miami-Dade Police Department arrests last year for battery on Aug. 29, and for possession of a controlled substance and grand theft of a vehicle on Dec. 26, records show. Both cases were closed.
Homestead police officers had arrested Foster several times when he was 18 and 19 years old, but prosecutors dropped most of the cases, Miami-Dade court records show.
Officers arrested him on Feb. 3, 2020, for petit theft; on March 26, 2020, for a concealed weapons charge; and on April 4, 2019, for burglary, petit theft, and unlawful possession of a stolen credit card.
Prosecutors dropped the 2019 stolen credit card charge, and Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cristina Miranda ordered probation for the burglary and theft charges but she did not formally convict him, records show.
Miami-Dade police officers had also arrested Foster on June 19, 2019, accusing him of carrying a concealed weapon and marijuana possession, but prosecutors dropped the case, records show.
Investigators asked anyone with information about the cases to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477, Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477, or Palm Beach Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-8477.
Local 10 News Crime Specialist Bridgette Matters contributed to this report.