ATLANTIC CITY — A Maine seafood company, one of its owners and four fishermen have been charged in a conspiracy to falsify records and obstruct justice in connection with overharvesting Atlantic sea scallops off the coast of New Jersey, authorities said.
The defendants took thousands of pounds of scallops above the legal limit in an area of the ocean where scallop fishing was limited, according to a federal complaint. They then falsified catch records to conceal the overharvesting, which allegedly occurred in 2007 and 2008, officials said.
The company — wholesaler D.C. Air & Seafood Inc. — and the five men were charged in the complaint filed Friday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark.
Charged in the complaint are: company owner Christopher Byers, 39, of Winter Harbor, Maine; and fishermen George Bamford, 37, and Daniel Mahoney, 48, both of Harrington, Maine; Robert E. Hersey Jr., 41, of Harpswell, Maine; and Michael McKenna, 35, of Steuben, Maine.
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