Florida boaters say they were mistakenly arrested — and jailed — despite being sober

It began as a peaceful afternoon boat ride in August. A Jupiter man took his wife, young children and friends out along the Loxahatchee River, a pleasant excursion for their guests, who were visiting for one night from out of town.

But it ended with the man getting handcuffed in front of his crying children and begging a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer, Jarred Stiltner, not to take him to jail for boating under the influence, even though he was sober, as testing later found.

Desperately, he told Stiltner that he didn’t drink and hadn’t touched a drug since he was 15, that he was a family man, the CEO of a Christian private equity company and a church elder. He thought he had passed all of the tests Stiltner gave him in order to prove his innocence. But Stiltner remained steadfast.

“Listen brother, you’re showing extreme signs of impairment,” the officer told him.

“I’m nervous!” the man exclaimed. “I’m nervous as heck. I have all my kids.”

“Okay, that has nothing to do with your eyes, okay?” Stiltner replied, referring to one of the sobriety tests, the horizontal nystagmus, which looks at involuntary eye movements.

“My eyes?” the man asked. “Breathalyze me. Do anything! Check everything in there. I don’t have anything!”

Stiltner proceeded to take the man to Palm Beach County jail, where he blew 0.00 on a breathalyzer test and was held until about 2:30 a.m. the next day. He later tested negative for drugs, records show. The man declined to speak further about the ordeal when approached by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, but asked that his name not be used; he is now seeking to have the case expunged after prosecutors decided not to file any charges.

His is one of multiple cases over the last few years involving Florida boaters who say they were arrested after performing poorly on a series of sobriety tests designed to detect impairment on the water. Those arrested had varying levels of experience with boating, some of them newcomers to the state. None had encountered the tests before or knew they would not prove their innocence. Body camera footage of the arrests has gone viral on social media, where commenters have criticized the officers’ actions and sympathized with those arrested. Still, for those who want to distance themselves from the experience entirely, the footage now lives permanently online.

“I don’t want a constant reminder of what happened to me,” said Lauren Lila, 25, whose charges were later dismissed, but whose arrest footage, where she is wearing only a bikini, was posted online under titles like “Instagram Model Arrested for Boating Under the Influence.” “Because it was a really vulnerable, gross feeling.”

In recent weeks, footage of the Jupiter man’s case has similarly gone viral online, though it does not name him, unlike in Lila’s case. Viewers have flocked to FWC’s social media pages, calling for the officer, Stiltner, to be fired. Over 900,000 people had viewed the YouTube video of his arrest as of mid-February, shared by an account called Donny Rapture that frequently posts clips of BUI stops.

The arrest also appeared to attract the attention of Gov. Ron DeSantis. At a Wednesday news conference at the Miami Boat Show, the governor announced a series of “boater freedom” initiatives, appearing to cite the Jupiter man when describing a law that would crack down on unnecessary law enforcement searches, prohibiting the use of safety inspections as probable cause to pull boaters over.

“We want to right a wrong that has been an issue in the state for far too long,” DeSantis said. “… We even had this situation out of Jupiter that got all these millions and millions of views over the internet where you have somebody pulled over for supposedly driving a boat under the influence and then blows 0.000 breathalyzer, and then they still went after him, and that’s unacceptable.”

‘You’re going to find this hilarious later’

The interaction began about 5:15 p.m. on a Wednesday, when FWC officers pulled the Jupiter man over for violating a slow speed minimum wake zone. Aboard the boat were the man, his pregnant wife, four children, another man and a pregnant woman, according to a probable cause affidavit. At one point, when Stiltner ordered the man to put his boat in neutral, he appeared to accidentally put it in reverse, something Stiltner later mentioned as evidence he wasn’t sober, according to the footage.

Stiltner then asked the man to find various safety equipment items like a “type four throwable” and a fire extinguisher, a task that officers also use to gauge sobriety, though Stiltner did not say that. The man struggled to find some of the items. At one point, Stiltner asked the man to produce a “bell, horn or whistle.” But he didn’t pause between the words “bell” and “horn.”

“What’s a bell horn?” the man asked.

Stiltner repeated himself.

“What is a bell horn?” the man asked again.

“Bell, comma, horn, or whistle,” Stiltner clarified.

“Oh, oh, oh,” the man said.

Stiltner later also used this interaction as evidence to support an arrest, writing in the probable cause affidavit, “I asked (the man) for a ‘bell, horn or whistle,’ to which he replied that he didn’t know what a ‘bellhorn’ was. I then specified I need to see a bell… horn… or whistle. Pausing between each word to avoid confusion. He then again said that he didn’t know what a ‘bellhorn’ was. I then again stated that I need to see “a bell comma, horn comma, or whistle”, saying the word ‘comma’ to again try to clear up any confusion. He still could not understand.”

Stiltner then asked the man to join him on the FWC boat.

“I kind of want to look at your eyes just to make sure you’re okay to operate because you’re kind of giving me some weird things,” he explained, according to the footage. “So do you mind me taking a look at your eyes real quick?” He did not say that the test he was about to give, the horizontal gaze nystagmus, is one of the field sobriety tests used to bolster probable cause for an arrest.

The man agreed. “You’re going to find this hilarious later,” he said to Stiltner. “I don’t drink or do anything.”

Stiltner then had the man sit down on the boat and watch as he moved a finger slowly from side to side. He later wrote that the man showed multiple signs of impairment.

The man stood up, thinking he was done, but Stiltner told him to sit back down and asked him to complete more tests, which he agreed to do. His wife, children and friends all watched from the other boat.

“After this, is this it and I can go home please?” the man asked.

“As long as you do fine on the SFSTs, brother,” Stiltner said. “Okay?”

Next, he moved onto the second test, called the “finger to nose.” He informed the man he had to place the very tip of his finger, not the pad, against the very tip of his nose, demonstrating using the knuckle of his hand. The man proceeded to do the task, unaware that he failed in several aspects, as Stiltner later wrote: “Subject did not tilt head to a 45 degree angle as instructed and demonstrated. Subject did not close eyes as instructed. Subject moved head more than 1” during the task. Subject hesitated twice. Subject did not use fingertip six times. Subject missed tip of the nose twice.”

The third test, known as the “palm pat,” went equally poorly for the man. Stiltner instructed him to pat his hand, alternating front and back, against his other hand, speeding up as he went along. The man appeared to do so, but Stiltner wrote later that he made multiple mistakes.

The man went on to perform the fourth and final test, called “hand coordination,” which multiple boaters interviewed by the Sun Sentinel said they found nearly impossible to do well. Stiltner told him to make his hands into fists, placing his left hand closer to the center of his chest, then count from one to four as he moved his fists forwards in a “step-like fashion.” He then had to memorize the position of his hands, clap three times, return the hands to the memorized position, and then move his fists in reverse, counting from five to eight, such that the same left fist returned to his chest.

The man asked Stiltner to repeat the instructions multiple times. At one point, he laughed when Stiltner had to refer back to his own written instructions.

“I think I got this,” he said eventually, then proceeded with the test.

But he did not, according to Stiltner.

“Subject was unable to follow instructions,” the officer later wrote. “Subject started before told … Subject had improper touch on return steps dragging his fists. Subject did not return left fist to his chest.”

“The last thing I’m gonna have you do is stand up for me,” Stiltner told the man.

“Didn’t you say that was the last one?” the man asked.

“Yup,” Stiltner said. “Turn around for me, put your hands behind your back. You’re under arrest for boating under the influence.”

The man’s children began to cry and scream as Stiltner put him in handcuffs.

“Didn’t I just pass all those tests?” the man asked, bewildered.

“None. Zero,” Stiltner replied.

The man asked to take new tests. When Stiltner said he couldn’t, he asked to take the same tests again. Again, Stiltner said no.

“I will make it my life’s mission for justice to be served,” the man said a few minutes later, sitting in handcuffs. “Like 100%, okay. Just know that.”

“You know, I’ve dedicated my life to that,” Stiltner replied.

“But you’re doing injustice right now,” the man said.

“I hope that that’s true,” Stiltner said. “If that’s true, then I made a mistake and then those charges will be dropped.”

The sobriety tests

The sobriety tests Stiltner administered that day are the standard tests used by all agencies that patrol Florida’s waterways. They’re known as “seated field sobriety tests” because they are meant to be performed in situations where people can’t stand up, such as on a moving boat.

They’re also typically the only thing between a potentially impaired boater and an arrest. Many boaters believe that they can take a breathalyzer test and prove their innocence that way. But officers do not administer breathalyzers until after arrests, and even if someone blows a 0.00, they still must go to jail to complete a mandatory eight-hour hold.

The sobriety tests were developed by the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators, or NASBLA. A certain number of clues on each test indicate impairment. In its justification for the tests, NASBLA cites a 2010 study in which 330 boaters, most of them white men, performed the tests in the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.

The officers in the study were “extensively trained” before administering the tests, the researchers wrote. “Only when the officers were proficient and comfortable administering and scoring the test did data collection begin.”

Researchers found that, altogether, officers using the four tests correctly identified someone as over the legal limit about 91% of the time. By comparison, they correctly identified someone as under the legal limit only 65% of the time, meaning that over a third of the people whose blood alcohol content results were under the legal limit were incorrectly identified as having BACs over the legal limit instead.

All of the arrested boaters who spoke to the Sun Sentinel said they felt like the tests were designed for them to fail, and that, had they known ahead of time, they would not have taken the tests.

In an article discussing the NASBLA study, defense attorneys for the Tennessee firm Best and Brock wrote, “it is possible that individuals are being arrested for boating under the influence while being well under the legal BAC limit for boat operation, based on potentially inaccurate field sobriety tests.”

Defense attorneys who specialize in BUI cases say that they often get the tests thrown out in court because of the number of compounding factors, like the boat’s movement, sunlight, and other distractions.

“If they choose to do them on a boat, there’s so many different factors,” said Matthew Konecky, a Palm Beach County DUI and BUI attorney who compared several of the tasks to a “child’s game.” “For instance, wind blowing the boat, other boats causing a wake, the boat going up and down. There’s always movement.”

Mitch Beers, a Palm Beach County DUI and BUI attorney who represented Lila in her case, recommends that his clients never take the sobriety tests, regardless of their level of sobriety.

“It’s just to see if you’re impaired,” Beers said. ” … You don’t take them. You shouldn’t take them. You shouldn’t do anything.”

Meanwhile, law enforcement experts say that the tests themselves are valid, but that officers must administer them correctly.

“I don’t think there’s really a way to improve them,” said Greg Croucher, a former Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office corporal with 20 years of experience investigating DUIs and BUIs. “The biggest way to improve them, to me, is you do them the way they’re taught. Learn them well, do them properly.”

Croucher says the majority of the arrests he’s seen are correct.

“Most cases I’ve seen, they’re doing it well within their bounds,” he said. “I’ve got my outliers that don’t. I’m like, how did they ever arrest them? But there’s not a lot of those.”

Still, some officers, especially those with less training, may explain the tests poorly, administer them incorrectly, or otherwise misinterpret someone’s sobriety, leading to a mistaken arrest.

Croucher, who reviewed the footage of the Jupiter arrest, said it went “out the window” when Stiltner told him that, if he had made a mistake, the charges would be dropped.

“Well, that doesn’t change the trauma to your kids, that doesn’t change being arrested and booked and staying in jail for two hours,” Croucher said. As a trainer, he always taught other deputies weigh borderline cases in the person’s favor, adding, “if you’re gonna make an arrest decision, make sure you believe that you have the weight on that side.”

Stiltner was hired in 2021, according to his personnel file, which mentions no prior complaints or discipline. In 2022, he completed a 14-hour BUI Detection and Enforcement Essentials course.

Following the August incident, he has been reassigned from water patrol “to provide additional training,” an FWC spokesperson said in an email.

FWC denied a Sun Sentinel request for a ride along or interview to discuss BUI arrests, but added in a statement that “we apologize to the boaters who were wrongfully inconvenienced. Our top priority remains the safety of boaters on Florida waterways, and we are committed to upholding that responsibility with integrity and accountability. While also respecting a boater’s right to enjoy Florida’s natural treasures.”

Lauren Lila

When Lauren Lila was arrested at the age of 23 in 2023, she didn’t know she had the option not to take the sobriety tests, or that failing them would set off a series of events that included her being paraded through a restaurant, handcuffed, in a wet bikini. Later, a judge would rule that officers lacked evidence to suspect she was impaired, but the footage, which received millions of views, still lives online.

Lila was riding a jet ski, alone, about 35 minutes after sunset when FWC Officers David Morgan, Emily Whitty and Austin Gilmore pulled her over for operating a vessel over a half-hour after sunset without navigational lights, according to a probable cause affidavit.

“Stop looking that way, there’s nothing over there that’s gonna save you,” Morgan called to her as she looked behind her, according to the footage. Lila later told the Sun Sentinel that she had been looking over her shoulder to check her blind spot.

Morgan wrote in the affidavit that Lila had a “strong odor of alcohol” and “glassy, red eyes.” Lila maintained to the Sun Sentinel that she did not have either. He asked her to find the fire extinguisher. She searched for it in a compartment for about 30 seconds before realizing it was under the lid.

“(Lila) was not able to find (the fire extinguisher) though it was under the lid she just raised up,” Morgan wrote, not mentioning that she later found it.

When he asked Lila how much she had to eat and drink that day, she said she had two beers and had eaten a lot, according to the footage. Asked if she was on any medication, she said she was on antibiotics for a sinus infection.

“So what I’m going to do right now is called seated field sobriety tasks,” Morgan told her. “So basically to see if this, right here, is just the sandbar, or the jet ski ride without goggles, whatever it may be, okay, or if this is your normal self, because right now, like I said, you’re giving me indicators that you might be impaired operating the vessel. You understand?”

Morgan wrote in the affidavit that Lila “consented to perform” the tests. A judge later granted a motion to suppress the tests entirely after her attorneys argued that Morgan had never in fact asked her permission.

When Lila sat down on the FWC boat, he asked if she felt stable.

“Yeah, I just feel really nervous,” she said.

“Okay, that’s fine, nerves are understandable,” Morgan replied, according to the footage.

“He really intimidated me,” Lila later told the Sun Sentinel. “And it didn’t even occur to me that I didn’t have to do (the tests). So I just thought that I had to, and, well, I’ll just prove that I’m sober and then I’ll be on my way.”

But Lila did not prove that she was sober.

During the finger to nose test, Morgan instructed her to use the tip of her finger, not the pad. But Lila, who had long, fake nails, could not use the tip of her finger, so she used the pad.

As Morgan demonstrated the hand coordination task, sitting across from her, Lila simply said, “I can’t remember that.”

“Do you want me to explain it again?” Morgan asked, according to the footage.

“I mean, I can’t remember that,” she said.

He went through it a second time.

“So when you start to count down, which hand goes on the back side?” Lila asked.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Morgan said.

Finally, after he went through the test two more times, he asked if Lila understood.

Lila, who had grown upset, said “sure.” She didn’t know whether asking him to go over it was counting against her. Then she performed the test.

“Give me one second,” Morgan said. He got up and went to talk to the two other FWC officers, footage shows, but the body camera audio is muted.

Beers, Lila’s attorney, later wrote that Morgan seemed unsure of whether to arrest her and was discussing what to do with the other officers.

After about a minute, he returned and placed Lila in handcuffs.

“I was in shock,” she told the Sun Sentinel.

Morgan then took Lila off of the boat and onto a dock. He unzipped her life jacket, leaving her only in a bikini.

“So, question,” Lila said, as she walked with him, barefoot, according to the footage. “I don’t deserve to know what you decided I’m impaired for?”

“Your normal faculties are impaired, ma’am,” Morgan replied, citing the sobriety tests.

Lila asked him what she did wrong. He said she used the pad of her finger instead of the tip during the finger to nose test.

“I have nails, I don’t have finger tips,” Lila said.

“You can still use the tip of your finger, we’ve had it with people,” Morgan replied.

Morgan also said she didn’t put her hand back down during the test, even though he never told her to do so, according to the footage. When she pointed this out, he said that he had.

Morgan then walked Lila, handcuffed and still only bikini-clad, underneath caution tape, off the dock and through a busy waterside area, including the outdoor seating of the restaurant U-Tiki, footage shows, as people turned to stare. He drove Lila to jail, where she refused to answer any more questions or take a breathalyzer test.

“I knew that I could,” she explained to the Sun Sentinel when asked why she refused. “And I went through enough and had proven my sobriety enough.”

Lila said she then sat, waiting, in the wet bathing suit inside the air-conditioned jail while Morgan did paperwork. Eventually, she recalled, she was given clothes after a woman walked by and asked “why is she not in blues yet?” Another jail worker remarked that she was not impaired, pointing to a different, visibly drunk woman.

“She’s impaired,” Lila recalled the jail worker saying.

Prosecutors dismissed Lila’s BUI charges last July after Palm Beach County Judge Ashley Zuckerman ruled in favor of suppressing the sobriety tests entirely, saying that Morgan’s testimony did not align with the footage.

“The Court has reviewed the State’s evidence and finds discrepancies between the officer’s testimony and the recording of the event (State’s #1),” she wrote in her order. “As shown in State’s #1, the Defendant was not slouching, lethargic, or unable to follow direction; she did not have trouble maneuvering her jet ski to the officer’s boat; her speech was normal and responses appropriate; her appearance, including her eyes, normal and alert; and her behavior fitting. In sum, there is a lack of credible evidence that Defendant was operating a vessel under the influence.”

Recently, Beers submitted a notice of claim with FWC announcing his intention to sue over Lila’s arrest, citing the damage to her reputation and Morgan’s “false attestation” in the probable cause affidavit.

“My belief is she’s not the same for what she went through,” he told the Sun Sentinel.

Nine separate YouTube videos depict Lila’s arrest, Beers wrote in the notice. The body camera footage was also posted on the Instagram account “MugShawtys,” receiving over 1.5 million views. The moment Morgan unzipped her life jacket is one of the most replayed parts of the video, Lila said, “which is so gross.”

Strangers have reached out to her after seeing the videos. After she was released, Lila said, a jail worker who found her information from her case called her to try to hit on her. She has also since sold her jet ski, afraid that people in the area would recognize her from the video while boating.

Even though the charges were dismissed, she doesn’t think the average person will pay much attention to the conclusion of her case.

“People don’t care further than that,” Lila said. “They like to see the the exciting part, the life jacket unzip, the ‘this woman got arrested.’ That’s all they care about. They don’t care really about the aftermath generally.”

The numbers

Most BUI arrests result in charges, and the majority of those charges lead to convictions, according to data from local state attorney’s offices. Still, about a fourth of the BUI arrests in Palm Beach County, where Lila was arrested, never turned into charges over the last five years.

Prosecutors filed charges in 77% of the 127 cases it saw, according to data from the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office. Meanwhile, 29 arrests, or about 23%, resulted in “no files,” meaning that prosecutors decided not to pursue any charges. Many times, it was because prosecutors determined there was insufficient evidence that the person was impaired, such as because their BAC was below the legal limit, their drug test came back negative, their performance on field sobriety tests didn’t rise to the level of criminal charges, they appeared sober in body camera footage, or some combination of these factors.

Of the 98 arrests that prosecutors did decide to pursue, the conviction rate was 91%.

By comparison, in Broward, only five of 35 BUI cases were no files, or about 14%, according to a list provided by the State Attorney’s Office. Most of the no files occurred because the person arrested blew below the legal limit following their arrest.

The office did not provide an exact conviction rate, but of the 23 cases that have concluded, roughly 70%, or 16 cases, resulted in convictions or no contest pleas. The remaining cases ended either after the person completed a diversion program, prosecutors abandoned charges, or a jury acquitted them. One of the cases did not appear in court records at all, suggesting it was expunged.

Those numbers do not include BUI investigations following serious crashes, injuries or deaths, which also occur, though far less often. In some of those cases, boaters and the public have criticized agencies like FWC for not enforcing BUI laws enough.

Arrested boaters who spoke to the Sun Sentinel didn’t want law enforcement to avoid making BUI arrests. They simply wished that officers had devoted their resources elsewhere.

“They’re spending time on me while there’s other people they could’ve arrested,” said Frank, a man arrested by Okaloosa County Sheriff’s deputies and U.S. Coast Guard officers in 2021. That same year, the Okaloosa’s Sheriff’s Office topped the state in BUI arrests.

Frank, a veteran who served in Afghanistan and who asked that his last name not be used, later blew a 0.00 and tested negative for drugs and alcohol.

He was spending Labor Day on Crab Island with his friends and his dog when officers pulled over his small yellow boat for speeding in a no wake zone. Like others, he ended up agreeing to and doing poorly on the sobriety tests, but said he would not have done them if he could go back.

“They make it seem like it’s just an easy thing just to do it, get it out of the way,” Frank said. “You’re helping them out.”

Croucher, who reviewed the footage, said that he did notice indicators of impairment during the tasks.

“He showed signs,” he said. “Again, was it through not understanding, not paying attention?”

Frank said he was distracted by reveling boaters passing by and the sun, which he said blinded his eyes. As officers asked him to find safety equipment, the footage shows, a yacht coasted leisurely by, blasting loud music. As the sobriety tests went on, Frank said he struggled to take them seriously. In some moments, he smiled, seeming amused. During the hand coordination task, he appeared to simply give up. He figured the officers had enough “common sense” to know he was sober.

When Frank learned that he was under arrest, he asked several times to take the breathalyzer, like the Jupiter man had during his arrest. Officers told him he could only take one at the Coast Guard station, and even if he blew a 0.00, he would still be jailed.

Frank still doesn’t understand why officers didn’t have a breathalyzer on the boat.

“They need to carry a breathalyzer,” he said. “That should be mandatory.”

But Florida’s officers rarely carry portable breathalyzers because courts have deemed them largely inadmissible due to their unreliability; certain medications or health issues can lead to a false positive. They also wouldn’t cover drug use, which takes weeks to confirm or deny.

After Frank blew a 0.00, no one told him his result. He was taken to jail in the back of a patrol car with another man arrested that day who seemed “drunk out of his mind,” he recalled. The man kept saying he was going to pee in the car if the officer didn’t pull over. The officer didn’t stop, telling the man he was going to charge him if he peed, Frank said. Luckily, he did not.

Later, Frank spoke to lawyers about suing over his arrest, but no one was interested. Police are rarely sued over mistaken arrests.

So he posted his own arrest on YouTube in hopes of getting something out of it. Frank’s arrest and mugshot are still online, which he thinks could affect his career. Still, he said, he doesn’t want to spend any more time or money trying to fix something “that never even happened.”