A 24-year-old Tavernier man is facing felony charges after Monroe County deputies say he bit a deputy on the arm inside a Marathon hospital, capping off a bizarre day that began with him being trespassed from a local business and ended with him being tased naked in a private swimming pool.
Rochan Rock Jean now faces charges of battery on a law enforcement officer and criminal mischief, according to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office. The confrontation on Tuesday marked the second time deputies had to deal with Jean that day, the sheriff's office said, after an earlier, far less dramatic encounter at a Marathon business.
A Strange Day Starts With a Trespass Warning
Deputies were first called to the Marathon business after Jean was reported acting strangely, per the sheriff's office. During that initial interaction, Jean was fully clothed, and the business asked that he be formally trespassed from the property, meaning he was barred from returning.
That should have been the end of it. Instead, around 12:45 p.m. local time, deputies were called back out — this time to a neighborhood on 52nd Street in Marathon, near Mile Marker 50 on the Overseas Highway, after residents reported a naked man wandering around in public.
Tased and Pulled From a Backyard Pool
When deputies arrived, they found Jean trespassing naked in a private swimming pool, according to deputies. To take him into custody, deputies used a Taser on Jean before pulling him from the pool.
From there, Jean was transported to Fishermen's Hospital, the eight-bed critical access facility in Marathon operated by Baptist Health South Florida. Bringing suspects to a hospital after a Taser deployment is standard procedure, as individuals are routinely evaluated at facilities like Fishermen's before being booked into jail, per a report from The Tampa Free Press.
Bite at the Hospital Turns Misdemeanor Into Felony
It was at Fishermen's Hospital where the situation escalated further. Jean bit a deputy on the arm, according to authorities, forcing the deputy to seek medical attention at the same hospital for the wound.
That bite is what elevated the case from simple trespassing and misdemeanor-level offenses into a felony matter. Under Florida Statute § 784.07, battery against a law enforcement officer performing lawful duties gets reclassified from a first-degree misdemeanor into a third-degree felony, carrying up to five years in prison, five years of probation, and a $5,000 fine upon conviction. The criminal mischief charge Jean also faces is governed by Florida Statute § 806.13, which scales penalties to the dollar value of property damage — anything over $1,000 becomes a third-degree felony in its own right, though it remains unclear exactly what property damage prompted that particular charge.
The sheriff's office initially misstated Jean's custody status, later issuing a corrected statement clarifying that Jean remained hospitalized Tuesday evening before receiving medical clearance and being formally booked into jail. Officials also confirmed that neither the bitten deputy nor Jean sustained life-threatening injuries in the encounter.
A Long Drive From Home
Jean lives in Tavernier, a community roughly 42 miles northeast of Marathon along U.S. Route 1, the Overseas Highway that serves as the only road connecting the string of islands making up the Florida Keys. That puts his home roughly an hour's drive from the Middle Keys neighborhood where the pool incident unfolded.
The Monroe County Sheriff's Office patrols the entire 120-mile island chain, running dedicated substations and patrol operations in Marathon and other Keys communities. It remains unclear whether any medical or mental health factors contributed to Jean's behavior that day, as authorities have not addressed that question publicly.
