By Adam L. Neal
staff writer
July 28, 2005

INDIAN RIVER SHORES — Two Fort Lauderdale men were in jail Wednesday after a security guard alleges he caught them digging up a sea turtle's nest on a local beach.

Pascasio Garcia, 43, and Horacio Oviedo, 46, were arrested Tuesday and charged with felony disturbing a sea turtle's nest.

Disturbing a sea turtle's nest is part of Florida's Marine Turtle Protection Act. The charge is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison, a $5,000 fine or both.

Oviedo and Garcia are scheduled to be back in court Sept. 16.

A John's Island security guard told officials from the U.S. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission he saw the men about 9:30 a.m. using their hands to dig into a fresh sea turtle's nest, according to the arrest affidavits.

The nest was near the dune line in the 500 block of Beach Drive.

While the guard detained the men and waited for law enforcement officials to arrive, he alleges Garcia admitted they were digging for turtle eggs, the affidavit stated. However, Garcia and Oviedo denied the allegations Wednesday morning during their first appearance hearing at the Indian River County Courthouse.

Oviedo told County Judge David Morgan through a Spanish translator Garcia had "pain in his back" and asked to bury him in the sand so he "can feel the heat."

Fair Use Disclaimer

The Pelican Island Audubon Society web site, www.pelicanislandaudubon.org, is a nonprofit, noncommercial web site that, at times, may contain Copyrighted material that have not always been specifically authorized by the Copyright owner. The Society makes such material available in its efforts to advance the understanding of issues related to Florida’s natural environment in hopes of helping to find solutions for those problems. It believes that this constitutes a “fair use” of any such Copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Persons wishing to use Copyrighted material from this site for purposes of their own that go beyond “fair use” must first obtain permission from the copyright owner.

All articles are copyrighted by the respective newspapers.