Matthew Edward Zoladz

Introduction

Matthew Edward Zoladz, a 37-year-old man from Palmetto, Florida, has pleaded guilty in federal court to dumping a dead man’s body into the ocean from a working vessel — admitting one count under the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act and one count under the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships for wrapping an overdose victim’s body in a plastic trash bag, loading it onto the ship he worked on as a deckhand, and throwing it overboard while the vessel was out at sea in December 2022. Zoladz faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison, with sentencing scheduled for January 20, 2027. U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe for the Middle District of Florida announced the plea, which the FBI investigated.

Background Information

The underlying death was an overdose. On or about December 7, 2022, Zoladz and another man — identified in court papers as Victim 1 — engaged in drug use together, during which Victim 1 overdosed and passed away. Rather than summoning help or reporting the death, Zoladz drove around with Victim 1’s unconscious or deceased body in the front seat of his vehicle, and took a video of the man in that state. The next day, December 8, 2022, Zoladz was scheduled to work as a deckhand on a vessel, and the schedule became the disposal plan: before the ship departed, he wrapped Victim 1’s body in a plastic trash bag and loaded it onto the ship.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Pleaded guilty; sentencing pending. Zoladz admitted federal marine-pollution charges for the at-sea disposal of a body and faces up to 15 years at his January 2027 sentencing.

That evening, while the ship was out at sea, Zoladz dumped the plastic trash bag containing Victim 1’s body into ocean waters — erasing the overdose victim’s remains in the Gulf’s open water and leaving the man’s death unreported, his body unrecoverable by any family or authority, and his disappearance hidden behind the sea itself. The federal charges he later admitted are marine-pollution statutes: the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act and the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, the laws that govern what vessels may dispose of at sea. Charging the disposal as a pollution offense rather than a homicide reflects what the evidence could prove — that Zoladz dumped a human body into the ocean from a ship — with the underlying overdose death itself not charged against him in this plea.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Abigail K. King and E. Jackson Boggs, Jr. of the Middle District of Florida. Zoladz’s plea in November 2026 — nearly four years after the December 2022 disposal — admits the facts that put a body bag on a working vessel: the shared drug use that killed Victim 1, the drive with the body in the front seat, the video taken of the dead man, the wrapping and loading before departure, and the dump at sea that evening. Each count he pleaded to carries exposure toward the combined 15-year maximum that will frame his January 20, 2027 sentencing.

Public Reaction and Consequences

A body wrapped in a trash bag and thrown off a commercial vessel is the kind of fact that outlasts the charging decisions around it, and Zoladz’s plea ensures the account is his own admission rather than a contest. The marine-pollution framing of the charges has drawn attention in similar cases because it criminalizes disposal itself — the vessel, the sea, and the dumped material — leaving the uncharged death to whatever separate exposure state or federal law allows. What the plea record fixes permanently is the sequence: overdose death on December 7, the front-seat drive and the video, the body loaded aboard on December 8, and the ocean disposal that same evening.

Current Status

Zoladz, 37, has pleaded guilty to both counts and awaits sentencing on January 20, 2027, before the Middle District of Florida, with a combined statutory maximum of 15 years across the marine-pollution counts. Victim 1’s family lives with the disposal’s permanent consequence — remains scattered in open ocean by a man who then worked the ship’s deck — and the plea’s admission of the video Zoladz took of the body preserves the fact of his conduct during the drive even as the sentencing hearing approaches. No trial will revisit the December 2022 sequence; only the sentence remains to be fixed.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A federal felony record for dumping a human body at sea ends any maritime career Zoladz might have returned to — the vessel industry’s credentialing for deckhands is unforgiving of pollution convictions involving human remains — and at 37 the January sentencing will determine whether the next fifteen years of his life are spent in federal custody. The plea also leaves open whatever exposure the underlying death carries separately, since the admitted counts punish the disposal rather than the overdose itself. For Victim 1, the record now states plainly what happened to him: he died of an overdose beside Matthew Edward Zoladz, rode in the front seat of a car as a video was taken of him, and was thrown into the sea in a trash bag the next night.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida, “Palmetto Man Pleads Guilty to Illegal Disposal of a Deceased Body,” November 4, 2026. source