Law

November 3, 2013 — The Department of Health and Human Services has launched a special welfare fraud investigation that targets Maine’s approximately 500 licensed elver fishermen, some of whom have earned up to $100,000 a year for their catch over the past few seasons.

The agency, in cooperation with the Department of Marine Resources and Maine Revenue Services, is reviewing catch records and tax filings from 2010 to 2013 to determine whether any elver fishermen who received welfare benefits have failed to report income. It’s unclear what motivated the special investigation or how much money the state is devoting to the initiative, which is described in official records obtained by the Maine Sunday Telegram.

The records disclose that the three agencies prepared a memorandum of understanding formalizing an agreement to share information. The Telegram has requested a copy of the agreement under the Freedom of Access Act, together with other records related to the project, from all three agencies. But state officials have so far refused to release any additional information. They assert that some of what the newspaper is seeking should be kept secret because it is “intelligence and investigative record” information, “confidential tax records” or “confidential fishery reports.”

DHHS asked the newspaper to destroy the documents that refer to the investigation, saying the material was mistakenly disclosed and should have been redacted because it is confidential. DHHS also asked the Telegram not to publish a story about the initiative, which the agency has dubbed the “Elver Project.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

WASHINGTON — November 1, 2013 — A lawsuit concerning the U.S. government's oversight of the Northeast fishing industry need not play out in Massachusetts, a federal judge ruled.

A 2012 National Marine Fisheries Service rule deploys onboard observers to monitor fishing of Northeast groundfish on 17 percent to 25 percent of fishing trips, but Oceana claimed in a federal complaint that those numbers are not good enough.

"Although the Fisheries Service intends to deploy onboard observers on 17 to 25 percent of all fishing trips in the groundfish fishery, the Fisheries Service failed to demonstrate why, in light of its own reports calling for high or even 100 percent coverage in other similar fisheries, monitoring of only 17 to 25 percent of fishing activity will be sufficient to accurately monitor the catch and adequately enforce catch limits in this fishery," the environmental group claimed.

It named the secretary of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Marine Fisheries Service as defendants.

Groundfish live on or near the bottom of the waters they inhabit.

The Northeast Multispecies Fishery covers 20 stocks of groundfish off the New England and the Mid-Atlantic coasts, including Atlantic halibut, cod, Pollock, haddock, white hake, redfish, ocean pout, Atlantic wolfish, yellowtail, windowpane and witch flounder.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

 

October 28, 2013 — The current owners of U.S.-based Mar-Lees Seafood are suing the company's founder and former owner, John Lees Jr., alleging Lees used his position with his former company to set up a racketeering and kickback scheme.

The owning company, Delaware-based Seafood Development, published detailed accounts of its allegations in a civil suit in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts on 25 October. In it, the suit named Lees, Mar-Lees Rhode-Island based attorney, Michael Sweeney, Massachusetts-based seafood company NorAtlantic 21 and New Jersey-based Blue Sea Products as co-conspirators.

Lees originally sold 80 percent of Mar-Lees to Harbinger Seafoods, which later became Seafood Development, in September of 2010. At issue in the lawsuit are what the suit called Lees' violations of the terms of that sale agreement. According to the suit, the agreement allowed Lees to retain 20 percent interest in the company through ML Holdings, Lees' holding company, and to stay on as the Mar-Lees' president and CEO.

As a condition of his employment, Lees had to agree to not conduct deals with competitors, or act in any other way contrary to Mar-Lees' best interests. This agreement was described in the court documents as "goodwill." The total sale to Harbinger amounted to USD 22 million, and, according to the suit, more than half of that money was paying for that goodwill.

"Lees and ML Holdings conducted and participated in the conduct of the affairs of the Mar-Lees Enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity involving numerous acts of commercial bribery in violation of state law and federal wire and mail fraud in connection with multiple fraudulent schemes," the suit stated.

Read the full story at Seafood Source 

 

NEW YORK, N.Y. — October 28, 2013 — Two men were arrested at JFK airport in New York last Saturday for stealing 44 kg (96 pounds) of Icelandic salmon.

The salmon was stolen from a warehouse, building 251 inside the airport. The two men were busted illegally loading the fish onto their truck. They are charged with petty larceny and criminal possession of property, ABC reports.

Read the full story from News of Iceland

October 11, 2013 — How much fish is safe to eat? That’s the key question in a federal lawsuit filed today.

The plaintiffs are trying to force stricter limits on pollution in local waters. A coalition of groups including clean water advocates, tribes, and the commercial fishing industry have filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency.

They want the feds to force Washington state to adopt tougher regulations, as required by the Clean Water Act. The amount of toxic discharge the state allows is based on assumptions about how much fish people eat. The plaintiffs say the current assumption—6.5 grams per day, or about as much as would fit on a cracker, is woefully inadequate and unsafe.

“It’s about a single bite of fish,” said Chris Wilke with Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, a plaintiff in the suit.

Listen to the audio and read the full story at NPR affiliate KPLU

October 3, 2013 — Two Santa Barbara brothers accused of violating federal laws related to a no-fishing zone off San Miguel Island beat the charges in late August when a federal judge determined that the government presented insufficient evidence to prove the crime.

The brothers were only able to fight the charges, which date back to a fishing trip they took on May 17, 2010, because attorney Rusty Brace of the Santa Barbara firm Hollister & Brace took on the case pro bono. Had he been tallying his time on this complicated matter, which he says the feds fought tooth-and-nail despite no hard evidence, the bill would have far exceeded the fines, costing perhaps as much as $80,000 when all was said and done.

The decision highlighted deficiencies in the vessel monitoring system (VMS) used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to watch fishing boats and enforce the rules surrounding marine protected areas (MPAs), prompting an ongoing review of the system with changes likely on the way.

For longtime fishermen Jason and Shane Robinson, the decision saved them from paying more than $17,000 in fines, which is a relatively low amount compared to other penalties, in part because they were only charged with idling in an MPA too long, not for fishing there, which can bring fines of up to $140,000. But the case also revealed what they believe is an unfair culture of guilty until proved innocent when it comes to commercial fishing laws. “They threaten you based on the fact that it costs more to fight these than to accept a settlement,” said Jason. “That’s what they told me, and that’s how they did it. In my mind, this is their ATM machine. … It feels like extortion.”

“It’s impossible to say what they did,” said Brace, which is basically what the judge determined, as well. Brace appreciates how difficult it must be for the government to watch the entire West Coast and the roughly 1,000 boats working the groundfisheries (the area close to the bottom where many fish swim), and he understands how VMS makes the monitoring somewhat possible, even if he finds the constant tracking somewhat oppressive. “It’s a great way to identify suspect behavior, but it’s not a viable way to prove a case,” said Brace. “You have to have other corroborating evidence.”

Read the full story at the Santa Barbara Independent 

Read a PDF of the opinion here

 

GRANTS PASS, Ore., — October 2, 2013 — An appeals court has upheld killing sea lions that eat too many salmon at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had told NOAA Fisheries Service it needed to do a better job of explaining why it was authorizing the killing of dozens of sea lions, which are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. And on Friday the court affirmed that the latest explanation filled the bill.

The court said the service examined the relevant data, and explained the rationale behind killing up to 92 sea lions a year to reduce the loss of threatened and endangered salmon.

Read the full story by the Associated Press at The Oregonian

 

ROCKLAND, Maine — October 1, 2013 — Knox County’s top prosecutor said he will not pursue animal cruelty charges in connection with the processing of lobsters at Linda Bean’s plant in Rockland.

District Attorney Geoffrey Rushlau issued a statement Monday afternoon in response to a complaint filed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA asked that Bean be investigated for possible criminal charges of cruelty to animals for the way her facility processes lobsters.

Rushlau said his research shows that the state’s animal cruelty laws never were intended to cover invertebrate species — animals without backbones.

“Because it is far from clear that the Legislature intended to include lobsters and crabs within this definition, and the opposite intention is more likely, I conclude that the conduct you describe in the materials submitted is not prosecutable under Maine’s cruelty to Animals statute,” Rushlau stated in his response to Dan Paden of PETA. “I will not ask the Rockland Police Department to conduct any additional investigation, nor file a complaint based on your investigation.”

PETA issued a statement later Monday expressing appreciation for Rushlau’s thoughtful review of the issue while disagreeing with his decision.

“We firmly believe that the law affords protection to all sentient animals, and we will be following up with him on that point and others and do not consider the matter closed,” the statement said.

Read the full story at the Maine Sun Journal

September 24, 2013 — Animal-rights groups urged the 9th Circuit on Friday to halt a plan to trap and kill California sea lions that feed on protected fish species near the Bonneville Dam, asking the court, "When does it end? When does the killing stop?"

Ralph Henry, a lawyer with the Humane Society of the United States, said the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had invoked a "narrow exception to kill sea lions," but could not point to the specific conditions needed for it to end.

This is the second time the issue has been raised in the 9th Circuit; the same three judges on Friday's panel vacated a similar federal authorization three years ago.

Oregon, Washington and Idaho first asked the NMFS in 2006 for permission to "take" California sea lions that eat salmon and steelhead just below the dam, which acts as a bottleneck to fish migrating upstream in the Columbia River.

The request was part of an effort to protect threatened or endangered populations of salmon and steelhead.

But California sea lions are also protected. The Marine Mammals Protection Act bans the taking of all marine mammals, unless individual animals "are having a significant impact on the decline or recovery" of threatened or endangered species.

Another species of sea lion, the Steller sea lion, also feeds at the dam but is off limits because it's protected by both the Marine Mammals Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Read the full story at Courthouse News 

 

MIAMI, Fl. — September 20, 2013 — U.S. wildlife authorities say the Alabama shad may be a fish species that needs protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced that it will conduct a review to determine whether the Alabama shad should be declared a threatened or endangered species. The agency regulates endangered species in the ocean.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Times Union