Andre Seenaraine: Second Alligator Alcatraz Officer Faces Battery Case

The officer standing in front of a Florida judge this month never disputed striking a handcuffed detainee on the side of the head. His own filing calls it a “compliance strike” and asks a judge to excuse it under the state’s self-defense law. The judge hasn’t ruled. Now a second guard from the same facility faces the same charge.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed to WINK Investigates that corrections officer Andre Seenaraine was arrested over the same January 25 incident that already put officer Stephen Trejos in handcuffs of his own. Both men worked inside “Alligator Alcatraz” — the remote Everglades immigration facility on the Dade-Collier airfield that opened in July 2025 and is now permanently closed.

Both face one count of misdemeanor battery. Both entered written pleas of not guilty. Both walked out after posting $1,000 bond.

Two arrests, one week, one facility

Trejos, 24, of Lutz, was arrested first — June 24, detained at the facility itself by state troopers and booked into the Naples Jail Center. Seenaraine followed 48 hours later, booked into the Marion County Jail. The state announced the facility’s permanent wind-down that same week.

What the witness says

The charging documents are thin, so most of what’s known about January 25 comes from a former detainee who says he watched it happen. Frank Rivera told WINK Investigates that more than 100 detainees had been held in handcuffs since early that morning, awaiting transfer — no food, no water. As the hours dragged on, he says, detainees began banging their handcuffs against the aluminum benches to get the officers’ attention.

That, Rivera says, is when Trejos confronted detainee Rigoberto Rodriguez Arce — grabbing him, slamming him to the ground and striking him repeatedly while detainees screamed for him to stop. Rivera alleges Rodriguez Arce was then moved to another area of the facility, where Seenaraine kept going, striking him in the face. WINK has not independently verified the witness’s account.

The bandages that opened the case

Rodriguez Arce, a Cuban citizen who had lived in the United States since 2007, was detained by immigration officers in December 2025 and, by his account, reached Alligator Alcatraz about six weeks later.

The incident might have stayed buried in the Everglades if he had never left Florida. His attorney, Yaritssa Plasencia, says staff at a Texas facility opened an investigation when he arrived with a black eye, bandages on his hand and a stained uniform. That Texas inquiry put FDLE on the trail.

“Every individual in government custody is entitled to humane treatment and appropriate medical care, regardless of their immigration status,” Plasencia said.

“A small fraction of the record”

Trejos is fighting the charge outright. His August 27 motion claims the detainee spat on him and that the single strike to the side of his head was “intended to redirect his face” — and cites surveillance video that neither WINK nor the public has reviewed. FDLE has released almost nothing about what the footage shows.

Seenaraine’s attorney, Evan Pfeifer, argues the public record barely describes his client’s alleged role. “The publicly available charging documents contain almost no detail,” Pfeifer said. “What has been reported so far is a small fraction of the record in this case.”

What happens next

The judge has not ruled on Trejos’ self-defense motion. FDLE says its investigation remains active. And a Florida grand jury separately found the DeSantis administration misappropriated $10 million in state money connected to the facility — a finding that, like the guards’ case so far, came with no charges attached.

Every charge is an allegation. Both officers are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty — the same standard their badges were supposed to represent. This post will be updated as the court record develops: a ruling on the dismissal motion, a trial date, and any further charges.

If it took a transfer to Texas to surface what happened in the Everglades — how many incidents at a facility that remote never made it into any record at all?

Sources
WINK News (WINK Investigates) · Gulf Coast News Now · Naples Daily News · Wikipedia — Alligator Alcatraz

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