Wonder if they will fine him...

[Valigator]

I doubt it.....Ronnie got alot of his money from the importing business in the 70's and 80's
he invested well.....

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...ostemailedlink
South Florida real estate tycoon wrestles alligator in Everglades -- and loses




By Buddy Nevins
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

May 4, 2006



Real estate tycoon Ronald Bergeron, who developed much of the former Everglades in southwest Broward County, was bitten on the hand while trying to wrestle with one of the Everglades fiercest denizens -- an American alligator.

Bergeron said he was giving an all-terrain vehicle tour of his 5,000-plus-acre private nature preserve in Hendry County on Sunday morning to guests who had donated $10,000 to the Boys and Girls Club for the weekend.

Coming across an alligator he estimated at 7 feet long resting on the lakeside, Bergeron, who has wrestled many alligators in the past, jumped on the reptile.

"Couples donate a lot of money to charities for the weekend and I always tell them I'm going to wrestle an alligator," Bergeron said Wednesday. "It's part of my Florida cracker culture. My grandfather was a game warden in the Everglades and I grew up around alligators."

Bergeron said he usually rides on the alligator's back for a minute and lets it go. He said he never harms the alligators.

But this time, the stunt turned ugly.

"I saw Ronnie jump on its back and suddenly he was dragged under water," said Aleida "Ali" Waldman, Bergeron's real estate attorney.

She said the guests stood stunned on the shore.

"He was rolling and I couldn't keep control of his mouth," Bergeron said. "He grabbed my hand in his mouth."

"When Ronnie came up for air, he was screaming," Waldman said.

When the alligator got near shore, Waldman and Bergeron yelled for car dealer Rick Case and others to grab the reptile's tail and pull it out of the water.

Bergeron, who let the gator go when he got on shore, was driven to Cleveland Clinic in Weston. His left pinky finger was shattered, his ring finger was broken and there were puncture wounds through his palm in several places.