Enforcement

When Senator Murkowski’s fisheries aide pulled out from consideration for an influential job in the Obama Administration two years ago, he said it was because the process was taking too long.  It turns out Arne Fuglvog was under investigation by the very agency he would have run.

Fuglvog pleaded guilty last month to breaking commercial fishing law before joining Murkowki’s staff, and resigned from his Senate job right before the charges became public.  His admission to falsifying catch records shook the commercial fishing industry in Alaska, where Fuglvog had served on influential councils.

Now former crew members are coming forward saying they tried to turn Fuglvog in to authorities for illegal fishing for years, and felt like they were ignored.

As early as 2007, two of Arne Fuglvog’s crew members tried to alert authorities to his illegal fishing.  One would not go on the record for fear of being blacklisted by the fishing community but the other is talking on tape for the first time.  Dan Pryse was reluctant, but agreed to meet at a diner near his home in the Lower 48.

Read the complete story from AlaskaPublic.org

 

 

 

 

August 25, 2011 — NOAA officials announced Thursday that a comprehensive independent audit of micro-purchases "found no abuse" of the asset forfeiture fund for fisheries that was subject of a scathing report documenting improper large-scale purchases and mismanagement a year ago by the U.S. Commerce Department's inspector general.

But in a telephone interview Thursday soon after NOAA's release went out, that Inspector general, Todd Zinser, disputed the findings as described in a statement by Maureen Whylie, the chief financial officer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"The auditors who examined transactions from 2005 to 2010 found no significant deficiencies as defined by accounting standards," Whylie said in a prepared statement that was released together with the findings of the Calverton, Md., office of the certified public accounting firm, Clifton Gunderson.

The IG's office was provided a copy of the report that Zinser said his staff was reviewing.

"I don't find NOAA's news release particularly helpful," the IG said.

He added that, in reviewing the smaller charges to the fund's account, Clifton Gunderson reported finding "lots of transactions that lacked documentation."

KPMG, one of the "big four" auditing firms in the U.S, and the one employed by the IG's a year ago to conduct a forensic audit of NOAA's asset forfeiture fund, "found the same thing," Zinser noted.

 

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Coast Guard Monday said an "undocumented migrant" was discovered during a routine boarding of the fishing vessel Southern Crusader II, a boat registered to and co-owned by the R & C Fishing Corp. of New Bedford's Carlos Raphael.

According to the Coast Guard, the Vila Nova Do Corvo II was boarded in Buzzards Bay.

"During routine measurements of the vessel to account for all spaces, the four-person boarding team from Coast Guard Station Menemsha (on Martha's Vineyard) identified an unaccounted-for space," according to a prepared statement from the Coast Guard's first district public affairs office in Boston. "With consent from the master of the vessel, the boarding team removed a panel from the forward bulkhead of the crew head to account for the space.

"Removal of the panel revealed an insulated space with lighting and a deck drain," the statement continued.

According to the Standard-Times of New Bedford, the void was empty in the vessel, which was returning to port from a fishing trip.

 

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bruce Buckson, who worked enforcing natural-resources laws in the Florida Keys early in his career, has been named director of the Office of Law Enforcement for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

In his new role at NOAA Fisheries, Buckson will direct more than 200 employees, including special agents and enforcement officers, who work out of national headquarters, six divisional offices and 52 field offices throughout the United States and U.S. territories.

He’s received numerous awards in his career for contributions to fisheries conservation and advocacy for consistency in fisheries enforcement, including the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Guy Bradley Leadership and Lifetime Achievement Award.

The award is named for a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy who was shot to death on July 8, 1905, while trying to arrest a poacher who was killing egrets for their feathers in the Everglades. Bradley was the second Florida Keys deputy killed in the line of duty, and the first wildlife officer in the U.S. to die while enforcing the law.

 

Read the complete story from The Keynoter

 

 

 

 

 

Following the appointment of Bruce Buckson of Florida to head NOAA’s office of law enforcement I asked a Florida fisherman to tell me a little about a man who is unknown in these waters. Here is the reply from Bob Jones who is executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association.

Several years ago, Colonel Buckson invited me to address a graduating class of marine patrol officers who the night before completed a very difficult training course at the law enforcement boot camp in Gadsden County. He asked me to tell them about the commercial fishing industry.  I had on my only blue suit, a red silk tie, spit-shined cordovan wingtip shoes and a blue baseball cap with an 18-inch gray ponytail hanging down my back. The Colonel stepped outside the room and told me it was my time. He gave me a look I’ll never forget then he smiled. I put my shoulders back and marched into the classroom full of shaved faces on handsome, motivated new enforcement officers. I watched their eyes as I swished my head from side to side to make the swinging ponytail visible to all. I’m not a mind reader, but could “hear” many of them thinking, “What in the hell is a 300-pound-hippie doing here?”

Read the complete blog from The Standard-Times.

 

 

 

 

 

Coast Guard administrative law judges are closing ranks. The small cadre of judges responded to a request of the embattled trial judge to advise him on his handling of a case he selected as the platform for a 34-page defense of his actions. Judge Parlen L. McKenna not only asked colleagues to help him draft his legal memo, but also asked them to read and comment on a blogger's posting.

The blogger, "Bore-head007," responded to the joint apology plus reparations by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco on May 17 to Yacubian, the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction and nine other victims of bad law enforcement and judicial treatment with a posting that began: "Hey, I've got dirty cops, dirty judges, dirty witnesses, pounding the snot out of their victims. Why can't I get your attention?" "I've got the most evil story going on the vine, running almost two years now, and I update it continuously with the latest on an almost daily basis, and I can't seem to get your attention," the blogger added. "It involves jackbooted thugs, corrupted judges, strong armed federal lawyers from a federal agency that employs a handful of creeps that burned up almost $50 million bucks in under five years, buying toys, cars, taking federal expert witnesses to exotic places around the world…" Bore-head007's postings are on Newsvine, a community-powered, collaborative news website. Founded in 2006 by veterans of Disney, ESPN and other media organizations — and now owned by MSNBC.com — Newsvine draws content from its users and syndicated content from mainstream sources, including the Gloucester Daily Times.

[read the Gloucester Times story in full]

 

 

BOSTON (AP) — July 26, 2011 — A high-ranking fisheries cop in Florida is taking over the top post at the embattled federal fisheries law enforcement office. NOAA's fishery law enforcement agency was heavily criticized after a federal review found financial mismanagement and abusive treatment of fishermen in the Northeast by some officers. In May, the U.S. Commerce Secretary ordered $650,000 in unjust fines returned to fishermen.  The former director, Dale Jones, was replaced last year after ordering dozens of documents shredded during the federal review.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that Bruce Buckson has been named head of that office.

Buckson is an FBI National Academy graduate and since 2007 has been deputy director of the law enforcement division at the Florida Fish and  Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Buckson succeeds acting director, Alan Risenhoover.

Read the complete story by The AP at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

NOAA finally named its new law enforcement director Monday, 15 months after sliding Dale J. Jones into another job in the midst of a scandal of maladministration, overzealous agents and score-settling that debilitated or crushed fishing businesses and infuriated congressmen representing Atlantic coastal districts.

On Sept. 4, Bruce Buckson, a Floridian with 29 years of state and federal wildlife law enforcement experience, takes over federal fisheries law enforcement, a department of more than 200 agents scandalized, in shambles and under continuing investigation in the aftermath of Jones' decade at the helm.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke described the department's problems as systemic, owing to a lack of training of agents, but the professional association representing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's enforcement litigators countered that the actions explored in multiple reports were for the most part authorized by management.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a new top fishery cop at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. On Monday, NOAA announced that Florida's Bruce Buckson has been appointed as director of the NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement.

Buckson, a deputy director at the Division of Law Enforcement at Florida's Wildlife Conservation Commission since 2007, takes up his new duties on Sept. 4. A career lawman, Buckson has been with the Florida agency for the past 29 years and also served as liaison to NOAA's Office for Law Enforcement for federal enforcement issues.

"From what I am hearing back from people within the fishing industry, this seems to be a positive development," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said of Buckson's appointment to head an agency that has been embroiled in controversy in the Northeast.

Read the complete story from The South Coast Today.

 

 

 

 

 

One of the four former Maryland police officers controversially hired for leadership positions in the law enforcement arm of the federal agency that regulates commercial and recreational fishing is retiring at the end of the month.

Hal Robbins, the special agent in charge of law enforcement in the National Marine Fisheries Service southeast division, which includes Florida, was part of a group of retired Maryland police officers who attained top positions despite having little or no experience in natural resources.

Sources also say the four were too old to be hired as first-time federal agents, they did not have to meet physical requirements for their jobs and did not complete federal law-enforcement training.

Robbins, now 63, was hired in 2004 by Dale Jones, who was then the director of the fisheries service’s Office of Law Enforcement.

Robbins did not respond to questions for this report. Spokespersons with the fisheries service would not discuss specifics about Robbins’ background and would not provide his age after repeated requests for that information.

Jones and Robbins, and Mark Spurrier, the former assistant director of the Office of Law Enforcement, and Mark Paterni, the current assistant director, all knew each other from their time working at local police agencies in Maryland.

Jones was hired in May 1999 when he was 42, Spurrier was hired in November 1999 when he was 44, Paterni was hired in June 2002 when he was 52, and Robbins was hired in June 2004 when he was 56, according to biographies of the men obtained by The Reporter. The age limit for first-time federal special agents is 37, government guidelines say.

Read the complete story from Keys Net.