Seafood seller charged

Lumpkins allegedly underreported rockfish

Friday, April 24, 2009

Robert Lumpkins and Golden Eye Seafood are accused in charging papers filed in U.S. District Court of buying and selling rockfish with tags that did not accurately reflect how and where the fish were caught.

"The defendants placed tags and caused tags to be placed on fish that falsely indicated the location where those fish were caught [and] placed tags on fish that falsely indicated the method used to catch the fish," federal prosecutors alleged in the charging document.

The scheme allowed area watermen to get more tags, and catch more fish, prosecutors allege.

Federal prosecutors also allege that Golden Eye Seafood and Lumpkins purchased fish that were outside the legal size limit from an undercover agent and sold those fish to purchasers in New York, Virginia and California.

"Golden Eye and Lumpkins also conspired to falsely record and verify lower weights of and higher numbers of the commercially harvested rockfish than were actually being caught," the prosecutors alleged Wednesday. "By increasing the number of fish allegedly checked-in and decreasing the weight, the defendants made it appear as if they and other Maryland fisherman were using more tags and catching lower weights of fish. They in turn would request more tags as it appeared they had not reached their poundage quota."

"It's unfortunate," Lumpkins' lawyer Robert Bonsib said Thursday of the charges. "We hope that the judge will be sympathetic to the problems of watermen who are trying to survive [despite] oppressive government regulations and tough economic times."

In addition, federal prosecutors report, John Evans, a commercial fisherman operating in St. Mary's and surrounding waters of the Chesapeake Bay, was charged this week with a violation of the Lacey Act for overfishing striped bass.

The authorities previously have described the four-year probe as the region's "largest ever investigation into illegal commercial fishing," involving hundreds of thousands of pounds of rockfish.

Federal prosecutors reported that the investigation that so far has tallied charges against 14 people led to Thomas L. Hallock, a commercial fisherman from Catharpin, Va., being sentenced Wednesday to a year and a day in prison for illegally overfishing rockfish. Hallock was also fined $4,000, prosecutors report, and was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $40,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to the benefit of the Chesapeake Bay Striped Bass Restoration Account.

The prosecutors report that sentencing dates for six other commercial fishermen charged in the investigation — Charles Quade of Churchton, Thomas L. Crowder Jr. of Leonardtown, John W. Dean of Scotland, Keith A. Collins of Deale, Kenneth Dent of Dumfries, Va., and Jerry Decatur Sr. of Stafford, Va. — are scheduled to begin next week and continue into July.

Cannon Seafood of Washington, D.C., its owner Robert Moore Sr. and his son Robert Moore Jr. are scheduled for sentencing next month, federal prosecutors report, and fishermen Joseph Peter Nelson Jr. of Great Mills and his father Joseph Peter Nelson of Avenue are awaiting trial on indictments from the investigation.

jwharton@somdnews.com