Defending his record as a fishing industry advocate, Congressman John Tierney Wednesday said he responded to the first call about law enforcement excesses in 2006 and invited the federal fisheries police director to come to Gloucester to hear first hand from the industry.
Since then, he said he has remained active and vigilant on behalf of fishermen.
During a one-hour visit to the Times, Tierney recounted setting up a meeting with Dale J. Jones, the then-director of law enforcement, and William Hogarth, then head of the National Marine Fisheries Service to inform them of the complaints emanating from the waterfront.
At the time, Jones' agents were a nearly daily presence at the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, while attempting to build a case of black-market fish sales.
Then-Mayor John Bell, who helped found the Northeast Seafood Coalition, was working behind the scenes to put a halt to what seemed to the auction and fishermen who used it to be something of a prosecutorial obsession bordering on vendetta.
Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.