Federal authorities on Tuesday arrested a McClellanville-area man they once implicated as a suspect in Brittanee Drexel's disappearance.
Prosecutors had used an unrelated robbery charge as leverage against Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor in hopes that he would help them solve Drexel's case. The 26-year-old said he couldn't help them, forcing his guilty plea this summer.
He remained free on bail while awaiting sentencing, but Taylor violated the conditions of his release, prompting his arrest, federal probation agents said in an affidavit. His jailing came as he and his attorneys also anticipate a judge's ruling on motions that could toss out the robbery case altogether.
West Ashley lawyer Mark Peper said Taylor had been fixing cars to earn a living and neglected to get permission from probation agents to travel to Dorchester County for work.
"He's done it before with permission," Peper said. "But he knows better. He should have gotten permission again."
Drexel, 17, of New York hasn't been seen publicly since she disappeared from Myrtle Beach in 2009. A jailhouse informant recently told the FBI that Taylor and his father had roles in her kidnapping, rape and shooting death before her body was dumped near McClellanville to be eaten by alligators. Her remains have not been found.
Though Taylor already was serving a state probationary sentence for his role in the robbery of a Mount Pleasant McDonald's, authorities charged him federally in the same 2011 heist. They hoped that the new charges would push him to reveal evidence about Drexel.
But Taylor insisted he wasn't involved.
Without information to offer, Taylor couldn't skirt the robbery charge, and he pleaded guilty in July. He will face between 10 and 20 years behind bars at a sentencing that hasn't yet been scheduled.
U.S. District Judge David Norton, meanwhile, is considering Taylor's motion to dismiss the case because of "double jeopardy" rules that generally bar people from being prosecuted twice for the same crime.
Taylor's motion challenges an exception that allows both and federal governments to both pursue criminal cases in the same incident. It calls his prosecution an "egregious abuse" to punish Taylor twice.
Peper said he and his client remained optimistic about the case, but Taylor's arrest was a setback in his bid to stay out of jail.
A federal agent's affidavit stated that Taylor's electronic monitoring device showed him at the Dorchester Dragway, which is outside the area in which he was supposed stay.
Taylor later confirmed that he had been working there, but the agent noted past occasions when he had been warned about other violations.
He is set to appear in U.S. District Court in Charleston at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, when a judge is expected to decide whether he should stay behind bars.
Reach Andrew Knapp at 843-937-5414. Follow him on Twitter @offlede.