A 77-year-old former Central Florida bail bondsman who is headed to prison for coercing jailed women into sex has also been fined for tearing up the shoreline of the fragile Little Wekiva River with a rented backhoe. Russell Bruce Moncrief used the equipment in early July to strip aquatic vegetation and sand from the riverbank behind his Starbuck Run property, work that Seminole County code officers say was done without any of the required permits.
The dual reckoning for Moncrief, who built a bail-bond empire across four Central Florida counties starting in 1975, is laid out in reporting from the Orlando Sentinel. County staff recommended a $15,000 fine for the shoreline destruction, though Seminole County’s special magistrate, Sherry Sutphen, ultimately ordered Moncrief to pay $1,000 and obtain proper permits for a gazebo, seawall, walkway and stairs within 90 days, following an August 13 hearing. Sutphen said the shoreline work likely damaged the river’s ecology and could affect downstream property owners.
A Backhoe on a Protected Waterway
Moncrief owns a two-acre property with a 3,200-square-foot home off Starbuck Run, and he told investigators he believed he was simply removing sediment and restoring his own shoreline. County inspectors found otherwise, documenting dredging and fill activity within a wetland and surface water without a valid state environmental permit. The St. Johns River Water Management District sent Moncrief a compliance assistance letter in July requiring a report on correcting the unauthorized dredging and fill work, according to the letter cited by the Sentinel.
The Little Wekiva River is a roughly 15-mile waterway that flows north from Orange County, passing under State Roads 436 and 434 in Altamonte Springs before joining the Wekiva River west of the Alaqua Lake subdivision. Florida lawmakers designated it an Outstanding Florida Water in 1984, and Congress designated the broader Wekiva River a protected National Wild and Scenic River in 2000. Those protections exist because the river has a documented history of ecological collapse — a 2020 drying crisis, detailed by the Sierra Club, saw portions of the Little Wekiva shrink from a wide channel to a dry riverbed during heavy summer rains, prompting public outcry and eventual state action.
Millions Already Spent on Restoration
That outcry led Governor Ron DeSantis to sign Senate Bill 976 in June 2021, mandating multi-agency studies into sediment accumulation in the river and directing environmental agencies to enforce permit compliance, according to 1000 Friends of Florida. Seminole County itself spent $4.3 million to restore 3,500 feet of the Little Wekiva River, with that restoration project completed in 2025. Federal advocates also secured $688,000 in federal funding in 2022 to support the county’s restoration work and pushed for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study into flow obstruction, per reporting from WESH…