Farm founded by state Rep. Truenow fined $16,000 after 2023 worker death
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
A farm founded by state Rep. Keith Truenow was fined nearly $16,000 for unsafe practices after a worker was partially decapitated in an accident involving a tractor in June 2023.
The man, Federico Viveros Dominguez, 47, was dead when deputies arrived at Lake Jem Farms, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
Truenow, a Republican from Tavares, is running to represent Florida Senate District 13, which includes all of Lake County and part of southwestern Orange County. He is one of three Republicans seeking the party’s nomination in the deep-red district and has the support of statewide GOP leaders.
Truenow is not mentioned in the investigative report from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. which levied the fine, and there is no indication he was there at the time of the incident.
The report does make clear that investigators found noteworthy deficiencies in certain parts of the farm’s operations.
According to the report Viveros Dominguez and several workers were harvesting sod when the incident occurred. Viveros Dominguez was on top of the trailer’s frame, guiding a forklift operator to load a pallet onto the trailer. After the pallet was loaded, he got in between the two trailers. The forklift operator, who did not see Viveros Dominguez, told the tractor driver to go. As the tractor driver drove forward, Viveros Dominguez apparently slipped or fell backward to the middle tires, where he was dragged for about 125 feet.
In its own incident report, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said it responded to Lake Jem Farms after other employees found Viveros Dominguez underneath a trailer loaded with pallets of sod. An employee told deputies she saw Viveros Dominguez sitting on a pile of sod before the accident occurred.
“In the past, the workers would ride in between the tractor and trailer,” another worker told deputies, but he was “unsure if this was the case during this incident.”
OSHA fined Lake Jem Farms $15,938 at the conclusion of its investigation for two violations: Workers were riding on the field equipment around the time the accident occurred, exposing them to hazards, and the sod harvester that mangled the man was missing required safety equipment, according to the agency’s investigation. The OSHA report does not say directly whether these issues were connected to the worker’s death.
Truenow said in a statement sent through the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee to the website Florida Politics, which first reported on the worker death and OSHA fine, that the incident was gaining attention because of political opposition. He described the recent publicity as a “gross act of desperation by a failing campaign.”
“This is incredibly dangerous work and the safety of our employees is our top priority,” Truenow said, according to the statement sent to Florida Politics.
Truenow’s current role with Lake Jem Farms is not clear. His campaign website says he founded the business, a sod farm that straddles the Orange-Lake County line near Lake Apopka.
“As a farmer and rancher, Keith focuses on producing sod that’s sold throughout the state of Florida–which is how Keith earned the nickname ‘Sodfather’ in Tallahassee,” his campaign website says.
Truenow’s LinkedIn page describes him as the farm’s business development manager, though the website for the business does not list Truenow as a current employee.
Nor is he listed on the business records for Lake Jem Farms. But Truenow claimed a 14.85% share in a corporation called LJF Holdco, Inc, as well as a $99,000 salary from that organization, on his state-required financial disclosure report for 2023.
The man who died at Lake Jem Farms, Viveros Dominguez, was a citizen of Mexico, according to the sheriff’s office report about the incident. The Sentinel could not ascertain his immigration status. Lake Jem Farms is not listed as an employer with workers on H-2A visas, according to the website for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, though Viveros Dominguez could have had a visa with a different sponsoring business.
Truenow did not respond to questions from the Sentinel sent by text message about the man’s immigration status or whether the farm hired undocumented workers.
Viveros Dominguez was not the first worker to die at Lake Jem Farms: In August 2017, a 56-year-old man was found unresponsive as he prepared to spread fertilizer, according to an OSHA report on the incident. He had a fractured skull and a broken femur and died of “blunt force trauma,” the agency’s report said.
That time, Lake Jem Farms was fined $3,880 because it did not report the incident to OSHA within eight hours of the employee’s death as required.
