Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'Obsessed' Ex Busted in Twisted Stalking Case

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Michael Deardeuff, 59, faces an aggravated stalking charge in Miami-Dade County related to allegations that he followed his ex-wife for years and threatened to kill her. Now, Deardeuff is back in jail after being granted bond as new information about his past has come to light. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy explains in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Dave Aronberg https://x.com/aronberg CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a bogus thing. I mean, get off my shit, man. An angry ex-husband, his ex-wife and allegations of stalking and new disturbing information we've uncovered about this man's past. You think that's what we'll do. We'll be agents for your wife. Welcome to crime fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. A woman in Florida claims her ex-husband has stalked her for years.

She reported it to police and her ex-husband was arrested. His name is Michael Deirduff. He's 59 years old and records show he has a lot of legal baggage. I'll get into that. But first, to the arrest and the terrifying claims from his ex-wife. It was 6.20 a.m. back on February 28th, homestead police officers got together in front of a Starbucks, but they weren't there to grab any coffee, of course. They were there to make an arrest and they were looking for Michael Deirduff.

There were several officers, maybe because Deirduff, is a big guy. He's 6.4 and 290 pounds. He told you that he said he lost a few pounds. Deer Diff is inside sitting at a table with a cup of coffee. One officer is inside and he gives the signal to the others and they all move in to make the arrest. Are you jeans? Do you have your name, boss? What is about it? Okay, stand up? For what reason? Because I'm worried you to stand up.

Because we're asking for your name. I'm getting up. I'm getting up. I'm getting up. I'm getting up. I'm getting up. I'm getting up. I'm getting up. I'm handicapped. Please allow me to get up. Now being handcuffed on that arm. You have to figure it. All right, boss, look. What am I being breasted for? Now being handcuffed, it's not new to Michael Dearduff. Not at all. I'll tell you. I'll tell you. tell you why in just a bit but let's get back to the video. Okay, can I get my keys to them? You said what? My keys. We'll figure on that.

I got to stay with you, man. We can't get your keys to some stric. They're not my straight. They're a friend of mine. They all know me in here. They can stay with you. All need to get your keys on. Well, my car's here and I don't read it.

If anything, they go watch the cars. It's unlocked. It's unlocked. Yeah, we can lock it. now. Unlocked it, like if you were going to take it off? What is this? Yeah, Michael Avernoff or something like that. Yeah, Deer Doe. Yeah, Deerda. Yeah, Deirdo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're looking for. What's, what reason? Stalky. Stocky. I'm not for aggregate a sock. Aggrauded stock. Stocking. Everybody's stocking.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So we're in. Brother. This is my ex-wife. Deirduff is right. The case involved allegations of stalking by his ex-wife. Deirduff and his ex-wife were married for 15 years but are now divorced.

And according to Homestead Police, the ex-wife had reported multiple instances of stalking to both the Homestead Police Department and the Miami-Dade Police Department. The affidavit states, on December 11th, 2022, the victim reported to the Homestead Police Department that the subject threatened to kill her. According to the victim, the subject told her, if I can't have you, no one will and I'll kill you and your new boyfriend. There was a gap in contact, according to the reports by the ex-wife from 2022 through 2025, and you might be wondering why. Well, Michael Deirduff couldn't travel because he was in prison. Florida Department of Corrections records show that Michael Deirduff was released on May 27, 2025 from prison where he'd served time for

burglary. So he was released in late May of 2025, but police say by late June, he was showing up in his ex-wife's life again. In the affidavit, police wrote, on 629, 2025, the victim reported to the Homestead Police Department that the subject was following her. The victim advised the subject confronted her at a gas station and admitted to following her. The victim provided the video and the subject is heard saying, I followed you last week. The incident was reported under HPD case number 25-040209. Then on January 12th of this year, the officers wrote that Deirdef's ex-wife reported to the sheriff's office that he was following her. and standing near the lake of her community with binoculars.

The following day, the ex-wife reported that Deirduff was outside her gated community. Sorry. Good morning, so this is my gate, this is up to my catam. It's going to let you know that we have in custody, in custody. It won't accept it. Something like that.

There's, there's, there's, there's either it is or is it. Come on, man. So there's a difference between the war. in a wanted poster. What you have is a wanted poster. So it's a he said she said thing. No. So a wanted poster is with us personally. Only the city of Homestead or a certain jurisdiction.

There's a crime happening at Homestead. Because my ex-wife has ties to Homestead Police Department. I can tell you that you flat out. I know. So you think you got arrested? You think that's what we'll do? We'll be agents for your wife just to mess your life up? I'm telling me it's happened before. I'm telling you flat out that woman has done it before. Okay, so she's lied.

Okay. Let me just rephrase. Put this way. I filed the police report against her for theft of just that person put that way. What's what it is? The arrest process continues and Michael Deirduff makes it known. He's not happy. I did not concess to a search.

And will you just pulled something? out of my pocket. It's not consent of the search. So how it is? If you're getting, if, if you're being placed, hold on, I'm trying to explain it to you. If you're being placed under arrest, you have to be, I haven't been placed under arrest yet. I can't put it up. I have to remove it soon. I don't care. I can't put it up. Listen to what, listen to what I'm saying. I'm going to fall. Okay. I don't care how big you guys are to, uh, hold me up. I'm going to fall. We're holding you. I have zero balance. If you already patting him down, let him sit on the back scene.

lift his leg up so let him sit down and lift his leg up so like that he doesn't have to hold his balance we're trying i'm trying to work with you just understand that but she's she's being aggressive and rough she is she's from jump street she's been aggressive and rough you think she's been at least aggressive no no from jump street when we came inside she was aggressive and rough what yes i know i'm a teacher and i've been watching the whole time and you know you're not going to say that she's not the first one to put hands on me for real She's the first one to put hands on me. For a reason.

Aggressively. She's not aggressively. Okay. Okay. I mean, body cams don't lie, do they? No, they don't. Okay. But you're agitated right now for no reason.

Huh? But you're being agitated. Well, I'm agitated because of what's happening right now. Okay. This is a bogus thing. And get off my . Don't move. She's on my .

She's touching my . And everything else. Stop. I'm doing my job. Just stay there. else search me. Unless you're going to give me a don't touch me there. Yeah, go like with that.

I'm telling you right now what she's doing. You didn't want to let you know. Don't start pulling away or anything. I'm just letting you know. I'm pulling forward, not away. I'm saying, I'm just letting you know. I don't want you to get extra charge. I can't go nowhere but right here. I'm going to explain something to the most common,

polite way possible, okay? It will behoove you to not make any settlement move. I'm trying not to. Or now the other officer now is going to search you. Okay. That being said, because doing all these sudden movements, you're just going to catch yourself another charge. How?

Deerdef ends up at the jail where he is searched and EMTs are called when he complains of a medical issue. They check him out and they say he's fine. A judge allows him to be released on bail and an injunction was ordered barring Deirduff from going near his ex-wife. That was in early March. But then on April 3rd, police got a call from the ex-wife. And they wrote in a report that the ex-wife said Deirduff was following her, and she used her cell phone to record video and photos of it.

Officers said they found him at a car dealership nearby. So now Michael Deirduff is back in jail accused of violating that domestic violence injunction. Okay, so to break down a little bit of this case, I want to bring in Dave Ehrenberg. He is the former state attorney for Palm Beach County. He has a lot of experience dealing. with people in the system. Felons, you name it. He's prosecuted it. You know, Dave, I'm really, you were one of the first people I thought of when I was going through the body camera in this case and through the records.

This is a guy who's been accused of stalking his ex-wife for years, threatening to kill her, following her. I mean, and he's been in prison for burglary. He's got a pretty good rap sheet on him. I mean, aggravated stalking. Sounds very serious, but, I mean, he can only get so much time. So what do you do in a case like this as a prosecutor? Because this woman is obviously very fearful and afraid for her life.

Yeah, you take your time, Anjanet, and develop a case against him that'll stick. You don't want just to hit him with minor charges. I mean, stalking can be a misdemeanor. Aggravated to stalking. It's a felony. But it depends on his priors, his rap sheet, as to what he scores sentence-wise. So you want to build up all you can, not just on what he has done, but also what he's done in the past to show the judge that, look, this guy doesn't deserve any break here. He is a danger.

And if he is let out, he is likely to do it again and possibly do something even worse. I mean, here's a guy who does seem quite unhinged. Is it that far of a leap to think that he could commit murder? So you got to really go and use your resources to target. This is who you target these kinds of people. because this guy seems like a menace to society. In the body camera footage, you know, he, he's kind of like, you know, what are you talking about? Like, oh, yeah, my ex-wife, yeah, she's always talking.

She's always making stuff up. And she has contacts. She has connections at the Homestead Police Department. You know, like he's painting this picture of somebody who makes things up. But, you know, she's got video of him and pictures. And she's talking about him hanging outside. of her community where she lives by the lake with binoculars watching her. I mean, that's pretty terrifying when you divorce somebody and you've been divorced for 15 years

and they're still hanging out outside your house looking at you and saying, if nobody, if I can have you, nobody will. You know, I mean, that's the kind of stuff like in the movies that you see. I mean, and then you think you put a tracker on her car because all of a sudden he's following her around and saying, you can't hide, there's nowhere to go. And then he shows up at various places. I mean, this is why stalking laws were invented. It's for guys like this. So law enforcement and prosecutors will red flag this one, especially because it's received all this attention. That does put extra pressure on law enforcement and prosecutors. The last

thing they want is for a tragedy to occur after they've been notified that this guy is lurking around. What's really disturbing to me, too, you know, there's a female cop frisking him. He obviously doesn't, they're kind of used, it only seems like she's in training in the body camera, but she's frisking him and he's like accusing her of grabbing his, I won't use the term he uses, but, you know, he gets, the language he uses is quite colorful. It's got quite the mouth on him, right? But he's talking to a female cop and he's really like mouthing off. and he's saying she's being aggressive and she's being rough.

I mean, he seems like he's kind of maybe got a problem with women. But it seems to me that, you know, he gets out on bail after they arrest him for the aggravated stalking. There's a domestic violence injunction that the judge issues saying, you can't go near her. Then she calls the cops in early April. And she's like, he's following me. And she used her phone. She used her phone and she got video the cops say of it. and photos of him following her and they go pick him up for violating the injunction.

I mean, if you're a prosecutor and you and you get that on your desk that this guy has violated the domestic violence injunction, is that enough to like file additional charges and to up the ante on the charge that he was already facing? Well, there are automatic charges if you violate an injunction. What you're going to do is to pursue immediate jail time for the violation of the injunction. But at the same time, you're trying to develop a case of things that are more serious. And these are what we call lethality indicators. So there are things that signal that a domestic situation is escalating from harassment to potential tragedy. And so when you see binoculars, which isn't just watching, this is surveillance. It shows a level of premeditation there. And

obsession that goes far beyond just the heat of the moment argument. Then you have following the car. I mean, that's a physical intrusion into her safe space. That's where it moves to aggravated stalking. And then you have the whole new boyfriend threat when you're threatening third parties. That goes to power and control. So, you know, you're going to try to use these things to show that this is escalating towards a tragedy. so putting him in jail for 30 days

and isn't going to solve matters. You need to hit him with really serious charges and so you've got to develop the case and take your time in doing so when he's behind bars because as long as you know he's not going anywhere, that's when you use the time to really develop a more serious case against this guy.

How do you protect this woman, though? I mean, because I don't think following, I mean, it does seem like an obsession. It seems like it's all about control. But, you know, you just don't know. if it is going to spin out of control at one point because, I mean, it's already kind of out of control, but I don't, you know, I'm concerned this woman is going to be harmed and I'm sure the police are too. So how do you ultimately protect this woman? Yeah, well, you have to develop the

evidence. So what you do is you looked at his phone. Search history. Is he Googling how to bypass a restraining order? You know, best binoculars for stalking, that kind of stuff. You want to show intent. that would help. You also want to do the cell site location information. So you want to subpoena his phone record to show that his phone did an exact ping the same towers as hers at that time she's alleging. You want to avoid the whole slap on the wrist here because if you just give him probation, that's the problem. You know, I think one of the concerns here is Dave, you know, the allegation would be that you have somebody who's a convicted felon who's been to prison and he's, out for about a month. I mean, if you're the prosecutor, you're going to be like, my God,

this guy's out for a month, maybe, and his wife's, his ex-wife is calling the cops and saying, my ex-husband's showing up and he's really freaking me out and he won't leave me alone. Well, that's a huge red flag because he's out. It shows that he has not been rehabilitated when the ex-wife is calling saying he is going back to his previous behavior. And so You got to keep your eyes on him. And that's where you have a revolving door of the justice system that could lead to a tragedy. And so you have to be very careful. You want to make sure that the goal here is incarceration, not probation, not a halfway house.

You want to deprive this guy of freedom because he is being very obvious to us all. He is showing that he can't be trusted to roam free. So aggravated stalking, let's say he's. ultimately convicted of that. From my reading of it, the violating of the injunction, that was a misdemeanor, I think is what it said on the docket. So if you're convicted of aggravated stocking, like if you get the max, like what would be the max you could get for that? Aggravated stalking is a felony. But as far as what you're going to get, I mean, it depends upon your rap sheet. It depends upon a lot of different factors to know where you are in the sentencing guidelines.

Now, you have felony stalking. You've got violating a protection order. And so you're probably going to get, I would say, let's see, a felony of aggravated stalking is a third-degree felony, punishable about up to five years in prison. And Florida use a point system. So you're not going to necessarily get the maximum, but you could get just for the stalking alone.

They could give him three years in prison because of his intent and because of his creepiness and because he seems to do it over and over again. And then you have the violation of the restraining order, which is a lesser. So I would think you're talking about what we know now around maybe at most three years in prison, which is something. In the meantime, you want to also look at other potential charges. Does they have illegal firearms? You want to see maybe the feds can come in with a firearm offense.

there are other things that you can get. Maybe he's stalking other people. Maybe you can hit him with more than one count. So this all will pile up, but the stalking itself is a felony, but it is a lower level felony. And rarely does someone get the maximum of these statutes? Well, this is a really scary case to me. I find it to be really awful that this woman is going through this. If everything in this court paperwork is true,

And the fact that this guy does have this rap sheet, I mean, it seems like he has a problem staying out of trouble. So we'll keep an eye on it and see where it goes from here. Dave Ehrenberg, thank you so much. Thanks, Anjanet. So right now, Michael Deirduff is in the Miami-Dade County Jail. He is being held without bail for now. So we'll keep an eye on this case and let you know what happens. That's it for this episode of Crime Fix.

I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time. Thank you.