Jose Siles Baez,Felix Hernandez case had been dropped

Jose Siles Baez, 41, and Felix Hernandez, 43, arrived in court Friday, when Collier Circuit Judge Elizabeth Krier told defense attorney Martin Beguiristain that the case had been dropped. Beguiristain had filed a motion to dismiss Monday.
Assistant State Attorney Douglas Sprotte, who said last week that he probably couldn’t disprove an affidavit that said the boat hadn’t been modified, dropped the case Thursday. He wasn’t in court Friday.
“We’re picking up the boat right now,” Beguiristain said after obtaining a certified copy of the judge’s order dropping the charges. “I’m going to drive behind them with the court order.”
Beguiristain said Collier County sheriff’s deputies damaged the boat, ripping up floorboards in an attempt to prove it had a false floor, an overly large gas tank and had been modified.
The men were arrested June 19, when a deputy stopped their Ford F250 truck for a traffic infraction, not slowing down or moving to another lane when a law enforcement vehicle had stopped in the fast lane on I-75.
They were towing a 29-foot Renegade boat that had 10 life jackets in a forward cubby and were charged with having a false floor.
“That’s a blatant lie,” Beguiristain said.
They also were charged with having additional fuel valves.
“That’s also a blatant lie,” he said.
The deputy contended an additional fuel cell in the floor of the boat wasn’t properly inspected or ventilated and was carrying 100 gallons of fuel, something Beguiristain also disputed.
Hernandez pleaded no contest to the traffic infraction in August and paid an $88 fine.
Four days after the men’s arrest, the Sheriff’s Office filed a lawsuit under forfeiture laws to seize the truck, Continental trailer, and Renegade boat.
But Beguiristain successfully fought that and the lawsuit was dropped in August by Collier Circuit Judge Charles Carlton, who found insufficient probable cause for a seizure. However, he allowed the Sheriff’s Office to hold the boat as evidence for the criminal trial.
In early January, Amed Oses, who owns Renegade Power Boats in Hialeah, provided a sworn affidavit saying the boat had a large fuel tank that extended into the boat’s bow area, immediately under the floorboard, something deputies had found suspicious.
Oses said the manufacturer modified the forward bow area to accommodate a new tank design and that the boat had been manufactured according to U.S. Coast Guard regulations.
“There are no specific regulations mandating any specific design of a fuel tank,” Oses said, noting that blueprints also aren’t required.
Oses said a U.S. Coast Guard inspector approved the layout and design, including the fuel tank, and Hernandez’s boat had been used as a demonstration vessel for prospective purchasers until he purchased it in December 2003; the sheriff’s report said the men had picked up the boat that morning.
Oses testified in his affidavit that no modifications had been made and the fuel tanks hadn’t been altered.
The men’s arrest was among several that day and was part of a continuing investigation into boat thefts, which often have been linked to the human smuggling trade.