SEATTLE — The special agent in charge of federal fish cops in the Northwest has been removed from her position.
Internal government investigators pore over documents from her Seattle office, sources say.
Vicki Nomura, who has overseen law enforcement for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle for a decade, was abruptly replaced in mid-May by an official from the agency's headquarters in Silver Spring, Md.
The agency's previous top law-enforcement officer, Dale Jones, was shifted to a new job after he was accused of shredding documents. His superiors have said the shredding was part of a routine paperwork purge.
The Northwest office largely escaped attention until February, when U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass. released results of an earlier internal investigation of the Seattle office by Commerce's inspector general.
The Inspector General found that in 2008, while Nomura was in charge, one of her managers spent $300,000 on a 35-foot Boston whaler ostensibly to spy on whale-watching tours. But the manager bought the boat without going through a proper bidding process and held barbecues, took friends and family members across Puget Sound to restaurants and resorts, and used the boat for what a visitor called "a pleasure cruise."
Ultimately, the boat was used for official purposes for just 119 hours.
The heavily redacted documents detailing that investigation state that an unnamed female manager in the office confronted the high-level agent who bought the boat about potential misuse of government property, which he denied.
But the manager did not make a record of the accusations or refer the matter to headquarters, as required. Nomura was the only woman in leadership in that office – and both her deputies were men.
It's not clear if the current investigation is connected to the purchase or operation of the boat.
Read the full story from the Seattle Times story by Craig Welch