More Watermen charged in illegal striped bass sales
Well just in time for Christmas, here's yet another horrific story of large scale striped bass poaching. This crime extends over a 14 year period! One can only imagine how many bass were illegally taken. Yes, once again we have environmental vandals at work, killing bass left and right to stuff their pockets with green. ITS NOTHING SHORT OF DISGUSTING.
District of
WASHINGTON,
Dec. 8 2009/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A Washington, D.C., fish wholesaler and
two of its employees have been charged in U.S. District Court in Maryland for
the purchase of illegally harvested striped bass, commonly referred to as
rockfish, from the Potomac River from 1995 through 2007, the Justice Department
announced today.
Ocean
Pro Ltd., aka Profish, and two of its fish buyers, Timothy Lydon of Bethesda,
Md., and Benjamin Clough of Graysonville, Md., were charged in a five-count
felony indictment, alleging one count of conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act,
three substantive felony Lacey Act counts, and one count of making a false
statement. The Lacey Act is a federal law that prohibits individuals or
corporations from transporting, selling, or buying fish and wildlife harvested
illegally.
The
indictment alleges that from 1995 to May 2007, Profish purchased striped bass
that had been illegally harvested in
According
to the indictment, in at least 1995, Profish began buying illegally harvested
rockfish from local commercial fishermen. Initially, Lydon was Profish's buyer
for striped bass. Clough assumed that role in 2001, when he was hired by Profish,
and he continued to purchase untagged and oversized striped bass from commercial
fisherman and others until May 2007. The indictment alleges that in 2007, Jett,
on numerous occasions, sold untagged and oversized striped bass to Profish.
In
early spring each year, wild coastal striped bass (Morone saxatilis)
enter the estuary or river where they were born to spawn, and then return to
ocean waters to live, migrating along the coastline. Fish spawned from the
Chesapeake Bay ecosystem contribute the greatest number of striped bass to the
Atlantic coastal fishery, and the commercial fishery for Atlantic coastal
striped bass is based primarily on migrations of fish born in the
The
Lacey Act carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to
$250,000 or twice the gain or loss as a result of the crime. Corporations face a
maximum fine of $500,000 or twice the gain or loss as a result of the crime.
A
criminal indictment is not a finding of guilt. An individual or company charged
by criminal indictment is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a
court of law.
The
charges are a result of the investigation by an interstate task force formed by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Maryland Natural Resources Police and
the Virginia Marine Police, Special Investigative, Unit in 2003. The task force
conducted undercover purchases and sales of striped bass in 2003, engaged in
covert observation of commercial fishing operations in the Chesapeake Bay and
These
cases are being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorneys Kevin Cassidy and Wayne
Hettenbach of the Justice Department's Environmental Crimes Section, and
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stacy Belf of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the
District of Maryland.
SOURCE
The First Case to Surface in 2009
State,
federal investigators uncover extensive poaching ring in Md., Va.
By Candus Thomson, January 31, 2009
State and federal
investigators have broken up a black market involving watermen and fish dealers
who sold millions of dollars' worth of striped bass, illegally taken from the Chesapeake Bay
and Potomac River, to shops and restaurants across the country, according to
court documents filed in federal court this week.
Four Maryland watermen, one Virginia waterman, two Washington fish dealers and
an upscale Georgetown
fish market have been named in criminal complaints, and officials said more are
expected. In addition, two St. Mary's
County
watermen were indicted by a federal grand jury last fall for their part in the
poaching scheme, which law enforcement officials in Maryland and Virginia say is
the largest ever.
The timing couldn't be worse for Maryland. On Monday, the region's fishing
regulatory agency is to meet in Alexandria, Va., and state officials fear that
the news could trigger harsh penalties that would cripple the
multimillion-dollar commercial fishing industry in the Chesapeake Bay and drive
up retail fish prices.
"These were fish pirates," said a high-ranking Virginia official, who
asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak about the case.
"This was racketeering. Computers and records were seized. You're going to
see some places go out of business."
The watermen and fish
dealers have been charged under the Lacey Act, which prohibits the illegal
taking of wildlife in one state for the purpose of selling it in another.
Violations of the act carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine
of up to $250,000, plus potential forfeiture of the boats and vehicles used.
Yesterday at U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, criminal complaints were filed
against these watermen: Thomas L. Crowder Jr., 40, of Leonardtown; John W. Dean,
53, of Scotland; Charles Quade, 55, of Churchton; Keith Collins, 57, of Deale;
and Thomas L. Hallock, 48, of Catharpin, Va.
"It's news to me," Dean said when reached by phone yesterday. "It
may be me. I don't know."
"There have been a whole bunch of plea agreements, but I can't talk to you
about it," Crowder said.
Law enforcement sources said individuals have admitted to poaching as much as $1
million worth of fish each over five years.
Annually, Maryland's 1,231 licensed watermen account for about 2 million pounds
of the 7 million pounds of striped bass legally caught commercially on the
Eastern Seaboard. The poaching scheme described in court documents and by
sources means that the state vastly exceeded its annual striped bass quota for
five years.
Maryland's watermen are required to report their catch at one of about 30 check
stations, which are run by volunteers holding fish dealer licenses. Each fish
must be tagged before it is unloaded from a boat. The check stations send the
information - number of fish and weight of the catch - to the Department of
Natural Resources in daily phone calls and file more comprehensive in weekly
written reports.
But insufficient tag monitoring and allowing fish buyers to run check-in
stations created a loophole that was exploited, Maryland officials acknowledge.
"This is a time to be sad about the lawlessness on the bay," said
Maryland DNR Secretary John R. Griffin. "There's not a whole lot you can do
to sugar-coat it. We toughened the rules last summer, but that obviously wasn't
enough. It's become clear we need even more accountability."
The DNR is proposing regulations to tighten monitoring and enforcement of the
commercial catch.
Andy Hughes, chairman of Coastal Conservation Association Maryland, called the
poaching "both alarming in its scope and tremendously disappointing in that
it was not dealt with many years earlier."
"We can't bring back the striped bass that have been stolen from us, but we
can learn a lesson," Hughes said.
The investigation began in 2003, when Maryland Natural Resources Police tipped the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service to poaching in the bay and the river. Here's how the
scheme worked, according to sources and court documents:
Watermen, like Joseph Peter Nelson, 69, and Joseph Peter Nelson Jr., 45, of St.
Mary's County, received additional tags by filing false reports with the state
about the number and weight of the striped bass they caught illegally in
Maryland waters.
After reaching his Potomac River quota, the younger Nelson allegedly began using
his tags designated for Chesapeake Bay use. From 2003 to 2006, he also used the
commercial license of a waterman referred to in the indictment as "J.R."
to secure more tags and falsify that catch.
Instead of carrying out transactions dockside, the indictment says, undercover
officers from Virginia Marine Police posing as wholesale buyers took delivery of
the fish from the Nelsons or unnamed men listed as unindicted co-conspirators at
a private home in St. Mary's County, a walk-in cooler, a parking lot and near a
bridge on a county road.
Watermen
used illegal fishing methods, falsified records
By Candus Thomson February 6, 2009
Virginia watermen used illegally submerged nets to fish out of season and
altered and reused fish tags as part of the black market responsible for
illegally catching millions of dollars worth of striped bass from the Chesapeake
Bay and Potomac River, according to affidavits for federal search warrants.
The court records, filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., present a
picture of a much larger operation, one in which one waterman boasted to
undercover officers of making $600,000 in one year of poaching and hinted at
making bribes.
Investigators searched homes, businesses, vehicles and boats and seized records
and checkbooks of commercial fishermen from the outer suburbs of Washington who
are alleged to have supplied seafood wholesalers with oversized and
out-of-season fish.
Last week, federal prosecutors announced that criminal complaints had been
issued to five watermen - four of them from Maryland - two D.C fish dealers and
an upscale Georgetown seafood market. More charges are expected as the
investigation enters its final weeks.
The complaints are a signal that those accused intend to plead guilty. Two St.
Mary's County watermen were indicted last fall for their part in the ring and
have pleaded not guilty.
The fish market, Cannon Seafood Inc., which had customers from Washington's
elite, has closed.
The search warrants, sought in August 2007, targeted Kenneth Lee Dent of
Dumfries and Jerry Decatur and Jerry Decatur Jr. of Stafford, Va.
Dent told undercover officers that "nobody would say anything" about
the illegal fish he caught and sold and that he had driven a load of illegal
fish to an unnamed Baltimore location for sale.
The search warrant affidavits say the senior Decatur asked for, and received, a
copy of the work schedule of Virginia Marine Police so he could avoid detection
and that his son told a uniformed officer who was part of the probe that he
might receive "a big, fat envelope" if he didn't write a ticket for
illegal nets.
Federal prosecutors say all of the watermen falsified records to underreport
their catches and abused a tagging system meant to keep track of the number of
fish, the location of the catch and method used to catch them.
The watermen and fish dealers have been charged under the Lacey Act, which
prohibits the illegal taking of wildlife in one state for the purpose of selling
it in another. Violations of the act carry a maximum penalty of five years in
prison and a fine of up to $250,000, plus potential forfeiture of the boats and
vehicles used.