4 December 18-24, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | ▼ LAUDERDALE LAKES BITTEN BROWARD SCHOOL DISTRICT INVESTIGATES ALLEGED DOGFIGHTING TRAINER. BY B. SCOTT MCLENDON C lose to a year after federal agents raided the home of “one of the top dogfighters in South Flor- ida” and found dozens of wounded pit bulls locked in cages in his backyard, the Broward County man has been sentenced to two years of pro- bation. On Tuesday, months after 54-year-old Al- exander Benefield pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing, training, and receiving dogs for use in an animal fighting venture as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, he ap- peared before a judge for sentencing and was ultimately spared prison time. As part of his probation, he is barred from owning dogs. However, despite the gruesome allega- tions and criminal charges against Benefield, he remains employed as a teacher by the local school district. Benefield, who was first hired by the Bro- ward County School District in 2017, is cur- rently an automotive service technology teacher at Boyd H. Anderson High School in Lauderdale Lakes, a school district spokes- person tells New Times. Benefield was a teacher assistant from 2017 until becoming a teacher in May 2024. During that time, he also served as the school’s head football coach and led a youth football league in Deerfield Beach known as the Deerfield Packer Rattlers. In an emailed statement, a school district spokesperson said Benefield’s employment status is “under review.” “Mr. Benefield is valued at the school as an automotive instructor, and he is devoted to inspiring his students to succeed,” Benefield’s attorney, Richard Francis Della Frella, tells New Times. Prosecutors say that while Benefield worked as a teacher at Boyd H. Anderson High School, he simultaneously rose to the top of Broward’s dogfighting scene, where he was known as “one of the top dog fighting trainers and dog fighters in South Florida.” Back in 2023, an FBI source and former dogfighter began secretly recording conver- sations with Benefield — including one in which Benefield revealed a video of one of his dogs killing and eating another one in his backyard. “That’s the fifth one he killed,” Benefield told the source. “He done killed five.” As Benefield recently awaited his sentenc- ing, prosecutors filed a complaint requesting that he officially forfeit all of the dogs to the U.S. government. In January, FBI agents raided Benefield’s Deerfield Beach home and found 36 pit bulls locked in cages in his backyard, many of them scarred and injured. The dogs have been in the care of the U.S. Marshals Service since then. A month after the raid, while still in U.S. Marshal custody, a pregnant dog gave birth to 12 puppies. The application of civil forfeiture of ani- mals is rare. While dogs seized in fighting-op- eration raids were once euthanized because they couldn’t be adopted until a criminal case wrapped, the U.S. government in the past de- cade has begun using civil forfeiture laws to take ownership of the animals with the goal of getting them adopted instead. [email protected] | RIPTIDE | A pit bull terrier Photo by lightsecond/Adobe Stock GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS allegedly developed close ties over the years. A couple of weeks after he began working for the law firm, Suarez became the senior operating partner at private eq- uity firm Dagrosa Capital Partners. This was also the year that he began investing heavily in making Miami a cryptocurrency hub, launching MiamiCoin (RIP), which eventually became worthless and was sus- pended in 2023. 2022 | $3,454,820 Suarez continued rolling out the red carpet for tech giants from Silicon Valley, even inviting then-Twitter leader Elon Musk to make Miami the company’s new home. 2023 | $4,451,994 In August 2023, Suarez became the first GOP candidate to drop out of the 2024 presidential race after polling at 0.2 percent. The following month, Florida’s Commission on Ethics launched an investi- gation into him after a complaint alleged he was seen shmoozing with celebrities and wealthy business leaders at the 2023 Miami Grand Prix events. (The commission later dismissed the complaint, finding that he reimbursed the ticket costs and that there was “no probable cause to believe” he accepted gifts in exchange for political favors). 2024 | $5,318,518 In between sitting down for interviews with far-right podcasters, Suarez photo- bombed the closing ceremony of the Es- ports World Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in August 2024. He sat in the front row several seats down from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, heir to the Saudi throne. [email protected] Suarez’s Millions from p3
