Enforcement

A Gloucester fisherman accused of harassing humpback whales on Stellwagen Bank in 2008 reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors yesterday that will see him fined $200.

Christopher Jacques of Western Avenue pleaded guilty to two violations of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, but avoided what could have been up to $100,000 in fines and a year in jail if he had been convicted at trial.

In March of last year, he was charged with three counts of whale harassment — including hitting two humpbacks with a boat.

"I took the deal," Jacques said yesterday when reached by phone after giving his plea in U.S. district court in Boston. "I wanted to fight it but couldn't take the chance. I am living paycheck to paycheck."

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

The two congressmen who last week grilled federal oceans law enforcement chief Dale Jones about findings of his agency's wrongdoing against the fishing industry during a field hearing at Gloucester's City Hall have stepped up their push for answers — and financial documents.

Mass. 6th District Congressman John Tierney, a member of the congressional oversight Domestic Policy Subcommittee, and Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the subcommittee chairman, have demanded that Jones, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Law Enforcement, provide a "full accounting" of all international travel he has taken since 1999 and a "full accounting" of all such travel taken by "other top officials" at OLE over the same time frame.

Read the full story in the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

 

The chairwoman of the House panel that oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration yesterday called for the agency's director of law enforcement to step down in the wake of a scandal over heavy-handed fisheries enforcement.

House Oceans and Wildlife Subcommittee Chairwoman Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) said that NOAA Law Enforcement Director Dale Jones should be at least temporarily relieved of his duties, given questions over whether he may have tried to destroy documents to avoid an even more scathing report from the Commerce Department's top investigator.

"As the top cop at NOAA and a longtime investigator himself, Dale Jones must be acutely aware that shredding documents during a federal investigation raises serious questions about his commitment to a full and fair look at all the facts," Bordallo said at a subcommittee hearing on the issue yesterday. "At a time when transparency and accountability in the way our government operates is of utmost importance, this type of behavior cannot be condoned, and Mr. Jones should step aside until the IG's investigation is completed."

Read the complete story at E&E Publishing, LLC.

The latest charges came from Inspector General Todd Zinser, who framed the matter this way:

"I guess what came to my mind … was I wonder what the office of law enforcement would do if a fishing company that they were investigating had done the same thing during the course of their investigation."

Already forced to defend itself from charges of uneven enforcement of the rules, NOAA has another disaster on its hands.

Its director of law enforcement, Dale Jones, is reported to have ordered the shredding of files in his office's keeping after staff from the U.S. Inspector General's Office told him that they were reviewing allegations that NOAA had been heavy-handed and unfair in levying fines and penalties against New England fishermen for alleged violation of regulations.

The new allegations have further undermined NOAA's standing in the eyes of the fishing industry and have done further harm to an agency already under fire.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today [subscription site]

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The spotlight was cast on the fishing industry last week, with the arrival of a congressional delegation that held a special hearing and the announcement of the settlement of a contentious fine levied against the largest fish auction in Gloucester.

The hearing, led by US representatives John Tierney, Barney Frank, and Dennis Kucinich, focused on alleged mismanagement by top managers of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the nation’s oceans and fisheries.

At the meeting, NOAA’s head, Jane Lubchenco, promised to investigate allegations by US Inspector General Todd Zinser that the agency’s law enforcement arm had acted autonomously while assessing more than $5 million in fines to New England fishermen from 2004-2009.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

Congressman John Tierney is right in demanding the resignation of the federal fisheries official accused of destroying evidence and other abuses.

Dale Jones, who has served as director of law enforcement for the National Marine Fisheries Service over the last decade, is currently the subject of an investigation by the inspector general of the NMFS' parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Tierney, joined by Sen. John Kerry and fellow Congressmen William Delahunt and Barney Frank, on Thursday called for Jones to resign or at least step down while the probe is under way.

"Our fishing families do not deserve to be treated like common criminals as they have been on Mr. Jones' watch," Tierney declared. During Jones' tenure, fines levied against fishermen here in the Northeast have been more than twice those in other areas of the country.

Jones, who honed for his top-level federal law enforcement job serving as police chief of Hagerstown, Md., has stocked his agency with criminal investigators to handle civil, administrative violations. He has also been accused of using the money raised from fines to send himself and members of his staff to conferences in exotic destinations.

Read the complete editorial at The Salem News Online.

Two federal fishery law enforcement agents visited Monte Rome last week at his Intershell speciality seafood distributorship, as Rome prepared to testify as a witness for the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction at the trial scheduled to begin five days later.

Rome was preparing to testify under oath about a conversation he had a number of years ago with Charles E. Juliand, who heads the Office of General Counsel in Gloucester. And Rome said the agents wanted to know what he intended to say in his testimony — specifically about his 4-year-old conversation with Juliand.

One of the agents was James M. MacDonald, special agent, for the Office of Law Enforcement, National Marine Fisheries Service.

Rome said the agents appealed to his "spirit of cooperation. "He was furious, and said, "How dare you come in here and ask me to speak to a federal agent."

The action is drawing questions and fire from state Attorney General Martha Coakley, U.S. Sen. John Kerry and others.

The flashpoint conversation between Rome and Juliand occurred sometime after Juliand in early 2006 had lost a trial in which he attempted to shut down the auction for accepting for sale too much cod. Because the auction dared go to trial and actually won, the case took on a certain legendary status along the waterfront.

Juliand appealed the judge's brooming of his case to the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who reversed the trial judge. The case remained active on appeal until Tuesday when the auction settled all its legal problems without admitting violations.

Last week, Rome was prepared to testify in the latest case against the auction that Juliand — with whom he was having a discussion of federal regulations of fish parts — described Larry Ciulla, president of the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction as a "lying piece of scumbag (expletive)."

Rome told the Times that MacDonald and his partner told him, "We understand you said Chuck Juliand said these things about Larry."

Many fishermen have also told the Times and the Inspector General that NOAA's NMFS investigators promised to drop charges for "ratting out" the auction.

Juliand and MacDonald did not return phone calls.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Dale J. Jones, whose decade as the head of federal fisheries law enforcement has produced a dossier of alleged heavy-handed practices against the fishing community, authorized a mass document-shredding operation last November while under scrutiny by the U.S. Commerce Department inspector general's office, a federal committee chairwoman charged yesterday.

The shredding came to light during the second of two separate House oversight subcommittee hearings into the findings in the yet-to-be-finalized report of Inspector General Todd Zinser.

The revelation of the destruction of documents was made by Madeline Z. Bordallo, D-Guam, who chairs the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Insular Affairs Oceans and Wildlife. Her statement came at the start of a two-hour hearing — a day after another House panel had grilled Jones and oceans chief administrator Jane Lubchenco about NOAA enforcement wrongdoing in another hearing in Gloucester's City Hall.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Dale Jones authorized the destruction of more than 100 files at law enforcement headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., during the investigation of his department last year, according to Commerce IG Todd Zinser. The allegations came to light yesterday during two hearings in the House and Senate on fisheries enforcement.

"It was not authorized by me, and when I informed NOAA leadership of what we found, they did not say they authorized it either," Zinser said of the shredding. "I was surprised by it. What came to my mind is, I wonder what the office of law enforcement would do if a fishing company they were investigating had done the same thing?"

Zinser is conducting a new investigation of Jones' actions, which he said should be completed within one month. He said that Jones has told him the document destruction was a routine attempt to clear away old files and had been planned for more than a year.

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said she would hold off on personnel action until the new investigation is complete — the course of action Zinser recommended to her. But she said she is "quite concerned" about the document destruction, which she just learned of Monday.

"I do think it does not look good," Lubchenco said yesterday.

Jones's office was already under fire after the IG found "systemic, nationwide" issues plaguing the fisheries enforcement program.

The report from the IG in January said law enforcement officers have created a "highly charged regulatory climate," especially in the Northeast, with strict enforcement of complicated laws that commercial fishers find hard to follow. Ninety percent of NOAA's law enforcement staff are criminal investigators, even though most fisheries' infractions are misdemeanors.

An investigation more than 10 years ago found similar problems with NOAA fisheries enforcement, but the problems persisted. Lubchenco said she could not comment on why, since that report came before her time.

Senate Oceans and Fisheries Subcommittee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) encouraged Lubchenco to dig deeper to investigate the response, or lack thereof, to the last report — a recommendation Lubchenco said she would take to heart.

"I think you'll find that the same issues why those recommendations were not implemented will be the same reasons why these won't be, as well," Cantwell said. "We don't want to do another report in a few years and find the same issues. These are cultural barriers in an organization that need to be broken down. Until we find out what those are, we cannot move forward."

The most recent investigation came at Lubchenco's request after she heard complaints from fishers and lawmakers about fisheries enforcement. Zinser said he thinks she will fight to address the problems, noting that she could have called for a lower-key internal NOAA audit, but took the issue to him.

"It was my view then and continues to be that [Lubchenco] wants to know the underlying problems and fix them," Zinser said.

Read the complete story at The New York Times.

The inspector general for the U.S. Department of Commerce has testified that Dale Jones, head of the NMFS Office of Law Enforcemen, destroyed documents while his office was being investigated.

Inspector General Todd Zinser told the House Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife that Jones ordered his staff to shred documents after inspectors from his office met with Jones in the course of the investigation.

Congresswoman Madeline Bordallo (D-Guam), chairwoman of the subcommittee, said Jones should step aside until the inspector general's office completes their investigation.

 

Washington, D.C. – House Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife Chairwoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo (D-Guam) today, during a hearing of the Subcommittee, called for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Law Enforcement Director Dale Jones to be temporarily relieved of his duties, amid allegations of unauthorized document destruction during an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Inspector General (IG).

According to the office of Commerce IG Todd J. Zinser, Jones initiated and authorized the destruction of documents and records at the NOAA law enforcement headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, while his office was simultaneously under investigation by the IG for allegations of heavy handed, unfair, and poorly managed fisheries law enforcement operations.  The document disposal effort was not approved by the IG's office or by his superiors at NOAA.

"As the top cop at NOAA and a long-time investigator himself, Dale Jones must be acutely aware that shredding documents during a federal investigation raises serious questions about his commitment to a full and fair look at all the facts," Bordallo said.  "At a time when transparency and accountability in the way our government operates is of utmost importance, this type of behavior cannot be condoned, and Mr. Jones should step aside until the IG's investigation is completed."

Zinser confirmed to the Committee that his investigation of NOAA law enforcement programs was already underway, and his staff had met with Jones to discuss the nature of the review and the processes that would be followed, when Jones allegedly initiated an office-wide paper shredding effort.

The latest revelation regarding Jones comes on the heels of the initial findings of the IG's investigation, released in January 2010, which uncovered "systematic, nationwide issues" affecting fishing industry law enforcement.  The findings and recommendations of the IG's initial report were the subject of a Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife hearing, which was planned in an effort to provide an in-depth discussion of the findings and recommendations of the IG.