Florida’s late-summer berry season comes with a felony warning.
Four people were arrested in Brevard County after deputies said they found them on private property with approximately 200 pounds of saw palmetto berries.
The fruit feeds a commercial supplement market, supplies seasonal food for wildlife and sits behind a state permitting system that can turn unauthorized harvesting into a third-degree felony.
Sheriff Wayne Ivey reduced all of that to a five-word warning: “Stop picking those damn berries!”
A 200-Pound Berry Bust
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The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were patrolling when they noticed two vehicles parked on private property in an area without vehicle access.
As deputies approached Daniel Depace, they allegedly saw other people hiding behind bushes.
Depace told deputies that he had a permit to harvest saw palmetto berries. Ivey said the permit was valid, but not for the property where deputies found him.
Deputies also detained Sonya Sloan, Ivan Flores and Shyeim Campbell. The sheriff said none of those three had harvesting permits.
By then, the group had allegedly collected approximately 200 pounds of berries.
Ivey said Sloan was already on felony probation. She was charged with harvesting palmetto berries without permission, resisting an officer without violence and violating probation.
Campbell, Flores and Depace were each charged with harvesting palmetto berries without permission.
The sheriff also said illegal berry-harvesting operations can sometimes be connected to human trafficking. He did not allege that trafficking occurred in this case, and none of the charges he announced involved trafficking or immigration offenses.
The Sheriff’s Office did not identify the property or disclose the estimated value of the berries.
The charges are allegations. Depace, Sloan, Flores and Campbell are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Why Anyone Wants 200 Pounds of Berries
Saw palmetto is a low-growing native palm found throughout Florida. Its fruit appears in late summer and fall, when commercial harvesters begin gathering berries for processing into saw palmetto extract.
That extract is commonly sold in dietary supplements marketed for urinary symptoms associated with an enlarged prostate. It is also promoted for hair loss, chronic prostatitis and other conditions.
Commercial demand has survived a less flattering scientific assessment.
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health says enough research has been conducted to conclude that saw palmetto alone is probably not helpful for urinary symptoms associated with prostate enlargement.
A 2023 review of 27 studies found that the herb provided little or no benefit when used by itself, according to the agency.
The finding has not made the berries commercially irrelevant. Florida still regulates their harvest as a commercially exploited native plant, and the annual scramble begins when the fruit ripens.
A Permit Is Not a Roaming Berry License
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has required permits to harvest and sell saw palmetto berries since July 2018.
Possessing that state permit does not authorize someone to harvest wherever berries happen to be growing.
Under Florida law, a person harvesting on someone else’s private property or on public land must first obtain both a state permit and written permission from the landowner or public agency controlling the land.
That written permission must identify the landowner, the dates of the authorized harvest and the harvest location, including the county. It must also carry the landowner’s physical or electronic signature.
Depace’s alleged permit problem illustrates the distinction: a permit issued for one property does not travel with the picker to the next palmetto patch.
Roadside businesses openly advertising that they buy berries are not necessarily operating underground. Florida law recognizes saw palmetto berry dealers, but it requires them to retain the seller’s identification, harvest dates, berry weight, state permit and written landowner authorization for at least two years.
The illegal market begins when the berries or the paperwork do not check out.
Willfully harvesting without the required permit or property authorization is a third-degree felony. In Florida, that classification can carry as much as five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
The statute also classifies unlawfully harvested berries as contraband. A law enforcement agency may seize them, sell them and retain the proceeds for enforcement.
Someone convicted under the statute can additionally be held responsible for reasonable enforcement costs and restitution equal to the berries’ fair market value.
Florida does preserve a narrow exception for legal harvesting from as many as two plants for home or personal use. That is considerably different from allegedly removing 200 pounds for commercial sale.
The Ginseng Comparison Holds Up
Several commenters compared Florida’s berry pickers to the people who poach wild ginseng in Appalachia.
The comparison is more than a joke. Both trades place a surprising cash value on native plants that may look ordinary to everyone except the people harvesting and buying them.
In April 2025, the Justice Department announced that Coby Brummett had been sentenced after admitting that he unlawfully dug more than 300 ginseng roots from Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.
Brummett received 30 days in jail, was ordered to pay $6,240.25 in restitution and was banned from the park for three years.
That federal national-park case was prosecuted under different laws and does not predict what will happen to the four people arrested in Brevard County. The similarity is in the mechanism: a wild plant becomes valuable, harvesters cross a property boundary, and something that sounds minor turns into a criminal case.
Saw palmetto berries also have value before they reach a processing plant.
UF/IFAS Extension identifies black bears, white-tailed deer, raccoons, wild turkeys, northern bobwhites, gray foxes and gopher tortoises among the animals that consume the fruit. The plant’s dense growth also provides habitat and cover for numerous other species.
The charge may sound like the setup to a jailhouse joke. The property, commercial market and wildlife behind the berries explain why Florida law treats the harvest as something more.