Spring Hill man arrested after failing to update ID after prison release

A routine records check turned into a post-release arrest in Spring Hill when Hernando County deputies say they found a recently released career offender had not updated his Florida identification card within the required 48 hours. Dwane Anthony Gomes, 49, was taken into custody on May 28 and booked into the Hernando County Detention Center without bond.

The sheriff’s office said Gomes had just completed a six-year prison sentence and was released on May 16, 2026, to conditional release supervision with the Florida Department of Corrections. Deputies said he had been convicted in Hernando County of sale, manufacture or delivery of heroin and resisting an officer with violence, and the Fifth Judicial Circuit Court classified him as both a Habitual Violent Offender and a Prison Releasee Reoffender, which made him subject to Florida’s career-offender registration rules.

Those rules are not limited to paperwork. Florida Statutes section 775.261 requires certain designated offenders to register for community and public notification, and it also requires a registrant to report in person to a driver license office each time a license or identification card is due for renewal and within two working days after a change in residence or name. In Gomes’ case, deputies said a database check showed his Florida identification card had expired on October 10, 2017.

Detective Marcacci later contacted Gomes at his El Prado Avenue residence in Spring Hill and asked to see a valid card, according to the sheriff’s office. Gomes said he did not have one, the release stated, and he was arrested on the charge of failure to update or renew a Florida identification card within 48 hours.

The case shows how Hernando authorities are using registry and identification rules as part of post-prison supervision, not just as a technical violation. It also suggests the county is actively checking compliance after release: the sheriff’s office has been publishing other registry-related enforcement cases, including a sexual offender failure-to-register arrest on May 6, 2026.

For Spring Hill and the rest of Hernando County, the point is broader than one expired card. When an offender with a violent or drug-related history leaves prison under conditional release, state law expects his information to stay current so law enforcement can track compliance and the public can be notified. In Gomes’ case, that system led directly from a records check to an arrest.