Florida teens charged with felonies after dumping garbage into the ocean at Boca Bash, outraging locals

A group of inebriated boaters caused controversy by ruthlessly tossing mountains of trash into the ocean as they left Florida’s annual Boca Bash on Sunday, April 28, 2024.

The disturbing act, which was caught on camera and spread rapidly across the internet, featured partygoers—some of the thousands who attended over the weekend—unceremoniously emptying their vessel’s overflowing trash cans into the Atlantic. The footage was captured by drone by the videography company Wavy Boats as the three-engine fishing boat, named Halcyon, motored out of the Boca Raton Inlet.

Rodrigo Samsing, a local, told WSVN that he was disgusted and that it really enraged him to see someone trash the ocean in that way. He noted that no one else on the boat attempted to stop them—everyone was merely having fun.

“They could have simply placed a bag in the garbage can, filled it, and thrown it away since they already had the trash there. Rather, they simply throw it recklessly into the sea. It’s just very depressing to observe,” Samsing sighed.

Representatives from Boca Bash denounced the conduct, calling the behavior “completely unacceptable,” and the event’s social-media pages said the boating community would work together to identify the boat and its occupants and report them to investigators. An investigation into the littering incident was launched by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), which served as the lead agency alongside the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office.

“It is irresponsible boaters like this that have zero care for our oceans that give this event a bad reputation,” the event organizers added.

The outrage did not stay anonymous for long. FWC investigators quickly identified the two people seen dumping the trash as juveniles—a 15-year-old from Gulf Stream and a 16-year-old from Boynton Beach. Officers tracked down the boat through its registration and visited the home of the owner, the 15-year-old’s father, who acknowledged his son’s involvement and told investigators, “This is not a representation of who we are.”

On Friday, May 3, 2024, the two teens turned themselves in. Rather than the standard littering citation, the FWC—after a staff biologist determined the trash posed a hazard to wildlife—charged both with causing pollution so as to harm human health, welfare, or aquatic life, a third-degree felony that carries up to five years in prison and a $50,000 fine. (By contrast, Florida’s litter law treats dumping more than 15 pounds of waste as a first-degree misdemeanor, with up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine; investigators escalated the case to a felony given the volume of plastic and the harm to the marine environment.)

FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto framed the case as both a serious crime and a lesson. “The illegal dumping of trash in our marine environment is a serious crime… Callous disregard for Florida’s environment will not be tolerated. This is a teaching moment for all those involved—Florida’s natural resources are precious, and we should all do our part to protect them,” he said, adding that he wanted those responsible to perform extensive community service and ocean-conservation work. The family of one teen issued a public apology, saying they were “extremely saddened” and were cooperating with authorities.

The dumping was not the only fallout from the weekend. Separately from the trash case, the FWC reported roughly 16 to 20 arrests at Boca Bash on charges ranging from boating under the influence to drug possession. The unsanctioned event, which is not affiliated with the City of Boca Raton, draws an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 boaters, Jet-Skiers, and kayakers to Lake Boca on the final Sunday of each April.

For more from The Aegis Alliance, see our Environment and Crime News sections. Additional coverage of the charges is available from WSVN.