{"id":251713,"date":"2026-04-29T22:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/251713\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T22:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:59:09","slug":"florida-keys-man-faces-felony-after-crab-trap-confrontation-caught-on-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/251713\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Keys man faces felony after crab trap confrontation caught on camera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0April 29, 2026 at 6:33 PM<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">BIG PINE KEY, Fla. \u2014 A Florida Keys man is facing a felony after a commercial fisherman says he found him trying to steal his stone crab trap. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">That confrontation, which authorities said happened off the Newfound Harbor Channel in the Lower Keys, was caught on camera.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Investigators said John Eric Madocks, 68, of Big Pine Key, claimed he is \u201cdeputized\u201d to pull traps out of the water and he has the paperwork to prove it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He later admitted to removing the trap but claimed he mixed up the trap numbers, but was \u201cunapologetic,\u201d authorities said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">According to an arrest report, the video made the rounds online, the victim informed officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission of a comment Madocks posted on Facebook saying, \u201cI hate to say it but that is me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He is now facing a charge of molesting a commercial stone crab trap.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Janine Stanwood\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/https:\/\/author-service-images-sandbox-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/21e83aab-f6c0-4437-b3.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Janine Stanwood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Janine Stanwood is an Emmy award-winning reporter and anchor. She joined Local 10 News in February 2004 as an assignment editor. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Chris Gothner\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/https:\/\/author-service-images-sandbox-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/3be3b5ed-fb4b-43ce-8b.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Chris Gothner <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Chris Gothner joined the Local 10 News team in 2022 as a Digital Journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0April 29, 2026 at 6:33 PM BIG PINE KEY, Fla. \u2014 A Florida Keys man is facing a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-251713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251713","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=251713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}