By Grethel Aguila and
David Goodhue
The state Senate voted to reconfirm Rodney Barreto as chair of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Tuesday afternoon, despite receiving dozens of emails urging lawmakers to reject his appointment due to the agency’s environmental record and how it handled the investigation of a 17-year-old girl who died in a boat crash in Biscayne Bay.
The vote to put Barreto, 67, an influential Miami-Dade developer and lobbyist, back in charge of the FWC passed 31 to 7. He has been FWC chair for more than 20 years.
Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat, pulled Barreto’s confirmation from a list of 189 people that the Senate confirmed en masse from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ appointments to offices, boards and commissions. Smith wanted a stand-alone vote on Barreto saying his and other senators’ inboxes had been “blown up by constituents with legitimate concerns about [Barreto’s] confirmation that we should not ignore.”
The Miami Herald has been copied on more than 50 emails from people urging senators to oppose Barreto’s confirmation.
The emails criticized Barreto’s record of conserving Florida’s waterways, as well as the FWC investigation into a fatal Biscayne Bay boat crash in September 2022 that killed a senior at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy and left her classmate with permanent physical and mental disabilities.
A Miami Herald investigation into how the FWC probed the boat crash led the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office to reevaluate its initial misdemeanor charges against the boat operator, Doral real estate broker George Pino, and charge him with felony vessel homicide, potentially landing him in state prison for 15 years.
READ MORE: How investigators, prosecutors bungled probe into boat crash that killed teen girl
The Herald’s investigation uncovered that investigators never followed up with witnesses in the immediate aftermath of the crash whose accounts conflicted with what Pino told the officers. Nor did the agency give Pino a sobriety test the night of the crash, despite Pino acknowledging to the officers he had been drinking.
The Herald’s reporting led to another key witness coming forward and subsequently, the State Attorney’s Office reopening its investigation and charging Pino with the felony.
READ MORE: Pino surrenders, is booked on felony vessel homicide charge in crash that killed girl
During an interview with Pino’s attorneys last month, an officer on the scene of the crash said Pino showed signs of being impaired from alcohol. The officer’s body camera footage showed his interaction with Pino but the footage was deleted, according to the officer.
Barreto told the Herald that the body camera footage was deleted because the officer mislabeled it when he submitted it to the lead investigator, and since it was not properly classified, the FWC’s server deleted it after 90 days.
“If the footage had been classified in the system correctly, it would not have been automatically deleted,” Barreto said in an email to the Herald. “Our technology team has looked into the issue, but the footage is not recoverable.”
Barreto also blasted the Herald’s coverage as containing “clickbait headlines and a misleading narrative that omits key details and lacks context and nuance.”
Before the confirmation, Sen. Smith said he was concerned about how Barreto’s lengthy tenure and how he balances his role as FWC chair with his lucrative career as a developer.
“He doesn’t strike me as an environmental advocate, certainly not someone who should be chair of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission,” Smith said.
This story was originally published April 29, 2025 at 3:34 PM.
