{"id":377216,"date":"2026-08-21T05:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T05:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/377216\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T05:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T05:30:18","slug":"fwc-charges-georgia-inmate-for-allegedly-selling-fraudulent-hunting-leases-to-florida-hunters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/377216\/","title":{"rendered":"FWC charges Georgia inmate for allegedly selling fraudulent hunting leases to Florida hunters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) investigators filed charges against a Georgia inmate this past May for an alleged fraud scheme targeting Florida hunters, according to the FWC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The state agency said 39-year-old Rodney Edward Smith from Chatsworth was scamming Florida hunters while serving time at Macon State Prison on false imprisonment and other charges.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" fetchpriority=\"low\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) investigators charged a Georgia inmate this past...\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/VUOT3RSCT5BUZFTCTT34MEOC2Y.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) investigators charged a Georgia inmate this past May for an alleged fraud scheme targeting Florida hunters, according to the FWC.(Gilchrist County Jail)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officials said between July 1, 2025, and April 30, 2026, Smith used smuggled cell phones to make numerous online aliases, social media profiles and phone numbers to advertise fraudulent hunting leases for properties he didn\u2019t own.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">These hunting leases are typically an agreement between landowners and hunters that allow hunters to access and hunt on their private land. FWC revealed that Smith negotiated these fraudulent leases for profit from multiple people throughout 15 Florida counties. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Georgia inmate reportedly scammed Florida hunters out of thousands of dollars. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-center\">More on crime in our area:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Col Randy Bowlin, FWC Deputy Director of Law Enforcement for Investigations and Intelligence, said that apart from the scam itself, the trust between Florida\u2019s hunters and landowners is in flux.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cBy offering fraudulent hunting leases, he not only stole from Florida citizens, but also damaged the trust between hunters and landowners that is essential to Florida\u2019s hunting tradition,\u201d Bowlin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Smith was extradited from the Georgia prison to Florida earlier this week to face his new charges. He\u2019s now facing four felony counts of fraudulently offering property for sale or lease, scheme to defraud less than $20,000, illegal use of a two-way communication device and cheating. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">His bond was set at $700,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">FWC said the Florida Attorney General\u2019s Office of Statewide Prosecution, the Georgia Department of Corrections and the Dalton Police Department in Georgia assisted in the case. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/08\/20\/fwc-charges-georgia-inmate-allegedly-selling-fraudulent-hunting-leases-florida-hunters\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) investigators filed charges against a Georgia inmate this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[151805,151810,28,151808,16388,30,29,4747,151806,151809,151804,151807,634,151803,115,151802,914],"class_list":["post-377216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-col-randy-bowlin","tag-dalton-police-department-in-georgia","tag-florida","tag-florida-attorney-generals-office-of-statewide-prosecution","tag-florida-fish-and-wildlife-commission","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-fwc","tag-fwc-deputy-director-of-law-enforcement-for-investigations-and-intelligence","tag-georgia-department-of-corrections","tag-georgia-inmate","tag-hunting-licenses-scam","tag-local","tag-macon-state-prison","tag-news","tag-rodney-edward-smith","tag-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377216","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=377216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}