Florida Man Arrested for Having Sex with an Alligator — Or Was He?

A viral story has been sweeping across the internet, and for obvious reasons: Rupert Darwin, 59, was allegedly arrested for sexually assaulting a 12-foot alligator that he kept tied and blindfolded in his yard. Over the past month he would reportedly have sex with the reptile multiple times a day, and the reason he did it wasn’t because he was into bestiality — but because the reptile had tried to kill him, so he was getting revenge on the beast.

But is it true?

The story originated (as far as we can tell) from a website called Thugvirals, which looks more like a high school kid’s blog from the 2000s, rather than a serious destination for journalistic reporting. It states that Collier County Sheriffs in Florida arrested Darwin “on multiple counts of animal cruelty and one count of illegally keeping a wild animal.” He supposedly said in his police statement:

The gator tried to eat me and this was revenge, pure and simple. I don’t have no sexual attraction to gators, but I wanted to teach this bitch a lesson. I could have just killed her, but that would have been too easy. She was getting what she deserved.

There are more horrific descriptions, as well as a racist comment — just in case you didn’t hate the man enough.

Stories of human-on-animal sex seem to be popping up a lot in the news. We’ve reported on multiple such stories, like the woman who poisoned her roommates after they caught her hooking up with her dog, the woman who took selfies of herself and her dog doing the deed, and even a guy who humped a stuffed horse at Walmart. Each story gets wilder than the next, so a guy rape-torturing an alligator almost seems like the next expected step.

However, none of it is true. But who this man is and what he did do in the past, is still pretty shocking.

The Collier County Sheriff’s Office has an online arrest search page that dates back a decade, and no man named Rupert Darwin was ever arrested in Collier County, Florida. Likewise, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the story is false on their Facebook page.

“Hey everyone — this story seems to be gaining traction on social media, but don’t believe it. It’s as fake as crocodile tears,” the post confirmed.

An image search revealed that the man is named David Beckman, 64, from Illinois. That is his mugshot above, and he was originally arrested in 2013 for having sex with his pet peacock, among other things. Huffington Post noted:

David Beckman, 63, of the Chicago suburb, Roselle, faces three charges of harassment by telephone, unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia, two counts of marijuana possession, attempted indecent solicitation of a child, cruelty to animals, and two counts of battery.