Miami Firefighter Retried on Child Sex-Abuse Charges After Pastor's Testimony Voided

A former Miami-Dade firefighter convicted in 2022 of molesting a child is back in front of a Miami jury this week, after an appeals court threw out his sex-abuse convictions because his own pastor testified against him at the original trial. Fernando Castano, 52, is once again facing charges that he sexually abused a minor, with jurors now asked to reach a new verdict on counts that once carried a mandatory life sentence.

Castano was originally convicted of sexual battery, lewd and lascivious molestation of a child, lewd and lascivious exhibition, and charges tied to pulling a gun on his then-wife, according to the Miami Herald. Circuit Judge Ellen Sue Venzer sentenced him to life in prison following that verdict, and she is now presiding over his retrial, per the same report. The allegations against Castano first surfaced after his arrest in connection with a 2021 domestic dispute, the Herald notes.

Pastor's Testimony Undoes the Original Verdict

At the first trial, Castano's pastor testified that he had told her he had sexual encounters with an underage victim, and that she had also spoken with his then-wife about it, the Herald reports. Florida's Third District Court of Appeal later found that testimony should never have reached the jury, ruling in May 2025 that Judge Venzer incorrectly allowed it and that the error was not harmless — meaning the pastor's account could have swayed jurors toward conviction, according to the Herald's account of the ruling.

The three-judge appellate panel — Alexander Bokor, Kansas Gooden, and Norma Lindsey — cited prosecutors' introduction of the pastor's testimony as the basis for reversing Castano's sex-abuse convictions, while leaving his separate domestic violence convictions for assault, battery, and robbery intact, according to the FindLaw Caselaw record of the decision. Gooden, quoted by the Herald, said the relationship between a member of the clergy and a parishioner is sacred. Under Florida law, conversations with clergy are often privileged and cannot be introduced as evidence against a defendant, a principle rooted in Florida Statute § 90.505, which — per Online Sunshine's text of the law — carves out an exception even to the state's mandatory child-abuse reporting requirements. Legal analysis from the EvidenceProf Blog noted the ruling also clarified that the privilege extends to pastoral counseling even when family members are present, so long as it serves spiritual reconciliation — a question Florida courts had not previously settled.

State prosecutors initially pushed back, filing a notice to seek discretionary review with the Florida Supreme Court in October 2025, but they later voluntarily dismissed that petition before any oral arguments were held, according to Florida Supreme Court case records. That left the door open for a new trial rather than a fight over the appellate ruling itself.

Ex-Wife's Account and a Defense Rooted in Surfside Trauma

Without the pastor's testimony available this time, prosecutors are leaning heavily on Castano's ex-wife, who testified during the retrial. She told jurors she became aware of the allegations in 2017 but did not call police at the time because Castano had threatened to kill himself, and she has since confirmed the abuse, per the Herald's reporting.

Castano's defense has tied his 2021 unraveling to his work responding to the Surfside condo collapse, where 98 people died after Champlain Towers South partially fell in June 2021. He worked at the collapse site, and he has blamed stress from that response for pulling a weapon on his then-wife, according to the Herald. A June 2023 study by UCF RESTORES found that more than half of first responders involved in body recovery at the site experienced psychological symptoms severe enough to require clinical care, with 16% showing signs of probable PTSD — data that lends outside support to the trauma narrative the defense has raised, though it does not speak to Castano's case specifically.

Before his 2021 arrest, Castano had spent nearly 21 years as a firefighter with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, following about seven years with Hialeah Fire Rescue, according to Local 10 News. Police arrest affidavits described a standoff in which Castano allegedly pointed a handgun at his estranged wife and threatened multiple homicides and suicide, then stabbed himself in the chest during a meeting to surrender his weapons to officers, Local 10 reported at the time. During the original 2022 trial, defense attorney Michael A. Catalano argued the molestation allegations were fabricated, telling the station that Castano's family had, in his words, “all kinds of motive to make this up” amid an ongoing divorce.

The jury weighing the new trial must now decide, without the pastor's account in front of them, whether Castano is guilty of molesting a child — a question that once produced a unanimous verdict and a life sentence, and now rests on testimony from his ex-wife and family members alone.