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<\/a><\/p>\nSuch cases were previously handled as misdemeanors. The new law, which two Democratic state lawmakers voted against, puts running past police onto a football field after a big game on the same criminal level as aggravated assault, bribery, drug possession or child abuse.<\/p>\n
When the bill was making its way through the Legislature earlier this year, even lawmakers who wrote it said it wasn\u2019t intended to punish what has been an occasional college tradition at some schools for decades.<\/p>\n
At a hearing of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee in March, Sen. Joe Gruters, a Sarasota Republican, asked, \u201cSo, just to be crystal clear, if somebody goes onto the field, they won\u2019t be charged with a felony?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not the intent, and they can quote me in the case law if that becomes an issue,\u201d said the bill\u2019s sponsor, Fort Myers Republican Sen. Jonathan Martin.<\/p>\n
Martin, the Chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, said during the hearing that the bill was meant to provide harsher penalties against Trump protesters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is specifically intended to address the Secret Service efforts to keep our President safe while he\u2019s in the state of Florida,\u201d Martin said. \u201cCurrently, people who are trespassing at those events or locations where the President is located are only committing a misdemeanor. This keeps happening very frequently.\u201d<\/p>\n At the Senate floor vote, Martin said law enforcement \u201cwere the large drivers of this bill.\u201d<\/p>\n The bill passed unanimously in the House. In the Senate, Orlando Democratic Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith voted against it, and Sen. Tracie Davis, a Jacksonville Democrat, recorded a \u201cno\u201d after the official vote.<\/p>\n Martin, a civil and personal injury lawyer, didn\u2019t have time last week to discuss the bill he wrote or its application in the case of the four UF football fans, according to his aides.<\/p>\n House lawmakers said the new law was also motivated by chaos at the Copa Am\u00e9rica international soccer match at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami in July 2024, when thousands of fans \u2014 many without tickets \u2014 rushed the gates. Police ejected 54 people from the stadium and arrested 26.<\/p>\n \u201cThis would give them a mechanism to go after those folks,\u201d said Cape Coral Republican Rep. Mike Giallombardo, who wrote the House version of the bill.<\/p>\n At UF, the criminal charges contrast with other universities, where similar scenes sometimes end in celebration. In August, after Florida State beat Alabama, FSU fans flooded the field, but no trespassing arrests were made, according to court records. The ACC fined the university $50,000.<\/p>\n In Gainesville, the State Attorney\u2019s Office hasn\u2019t yet formally charged the four fans in their criminal cases, according to court records. The four were arrested on the felony charges at the stadium, booked into the jail across town, and then released without having to pay bail.<\/p>\n They include UF students Landon Beckham Kingsle Kefford, 21, of Parkland, and Danek Everett Blalock Cirafesi, 19, of Somerville, New Jersey. They were banned from the stadium for three years. The others were Kevin Wilcox Joy, 35, of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and John Paul Schmidt, 27, of Greensboro, North Carolina. The latter two were banned from the university\u2019s campus for three years, not just the stadium.<\/p>\n None of the four returned emails or text messages to discuss their arrests. Cirafesi and Schmidt pleaded not guilty last week.<\/p>\n There are no records of UF fans as a crowd ever rushing the field, one of the only schools in the SEC with that distinction. Spurrier \u2014 who coached UF from 1990 to 2001, won Florida\u2019s first Heisman in 1966 as a player and runs a popular steakhouse in Gainesville \u2014 said wistfully he has seen that kind of exuberance at other schools.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I watch these other schools do it, that\u2019s a memory of a lifetime for those students,\u201d Spurrier told Fresh Take Florida, a news service at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.<\/p>\n Spurrier famously encouraged fans last year to rush the field if the Gators beat LSU\u00a0while Coach\u00a0Billy Napier was in charge. UF won 27-16, but the fans stayed in their seats.<\/p>\n \u201cI was hoping it would put a little incentive into our team,\u201d Spurrier said. \u201cAccording to Coach Napier, they had a little extra juice thinking the students were going to swarm out there if we beat LSU that night.\u201d<\/p>\n Bennett Hutson, the defense lawyer for Joy and Kefford, said he believes authorities recommended the felony charges to deter future incidents. The university openly discourages fans from running onto the field after games by making announcements during the game and displaying messages on the scoreboard.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want to get the message out that they don\u2019t want people to do this,\u201d Hutson said. \u201cThey want people to respect their integrity, the integrity of the stadium and the safety of the student athletes and all the staff.\u201d<\/p>\n In Florida, there were two earlier misdemeanor arrests under the new law, both in Miami. A 19-year-old was accused of interfering with a sporting or entertainment event after police said he jumped the turnstile at a music concert at the Hard Rock Stadium in August. A judge offered to sentence him to 25 hours of community service and keep the arrest off his record.<\/p>\n The other misdemeanor arrest involved Alejandro Antonio Alvarez Narvaez, 27, of Key Biscayne, who police said ran onto the field last month after the University of Miami\u2019s 49-12 victory over the University of South Florida. Police arrested him under a different provision of the same law, which carries a misdemeanor penalty of up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine. His arraignment was scheduled for Oct. 27.<\/p>\n The defense lawyer for the other two men in Gainesville, Dean Galigani, did not immediately return phone messages.<\/p>\n Hutson predicted the case would end without his clients facing a felony record or years in prison.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s a kid doing something dumb and he doesn\u2019t hurt somebody \u2026 they\u2019re not trying to change that kid\u2019s future,\u201d Hutson said. \u201cSo, the case will get handled in a way that meshes with that.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Olivia Evans reports via Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, which produced this story. The reporter can be reached at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. You can donate to support our students\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four exuberant football fans who rushed the field after the University of Florida\u2019s upset win over Texas are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2507,409,28,30,29,57,2508,2509,2510,2511,2512],"class_list":["post-1906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-carlos-guillermo-smith","tag-donald-trump","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-football","tag-joe-gruters","tag-jonathan-martin","tag-trespass","tag-uf","tag-university-of-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Influence_FGAT_Banner_728x90.jpg\")
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