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Swimming in Intrigue in Backwoods of Md.
Four-Year Undercover Probe Led to Charges of Rockfish Trafficking
By David A. Fahrenthold and Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 7, 2009; A01
The covert meeting that started it all happened in a warehouse set back in the Southern Maryland woods. The target had the money, $514.50.
The undercover officer had the fish.
He had 11 illegal rockfish, the stripe-sided beauties beloved by fishermen and diners. At this exchange, the stripers were the contraband: All were too big to be legal, protected so they could spawn new generations.
"You're sure this is all right?" asked the undercover operative, a Virginia police officer pretending to be a shady seafood dealer. He was fishing himself, trying to elicit a confession that the mark knew that what he was doing was wrong.
"I hear no evil, see no evil," the man said, according to court papers.
But somebody did.
That sale, in April 2003, helped launch a four-year covert investigation that authorities say revealed a web of people trafficking in illegal seafood from the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. The case became a dockside Donnie Brasco tale as agents used cover stories, recorded conversations and even a fish coroner to sketch links between a rural corner of Southern Maryland, a fish market in Georgetown and dinner plates along the East Coast.
Cheating is an old vice around the Chesapeake, with watermen sneaking in extra bushels of oysters or undersized perch.
Except for the man selling the illegal rockfish that day, it seems few people in the area thought somebody would make a federal case of it.
"I believe that most of them thought that the worst they were doing was only a state violation," said Robert T. Brown, president of the watermen's association in St. Mary's County, where much of the investigation took place. "They didn't know they were going to be in a federal court, I can tell you that."
Nine people have been charged in the case so far: seven fishermen along with a father and son from Georgetown's Cannon Seafood. They could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each violation of a federal wildlife protection statute. More likely, the sentences would range from probation to a year in jail. Two defendants have pleaded not guilty; the rest have signaled in court that they plan to plead guilty.
The case was the biggest of its kind in the region since at least the mid-1980s. Authorities say the traffickers moved about 600,000 pounds of illegal fish between 2003 and 2007, with a retail value between $3 million and $7 million.
"I don't think anybody knew it was quite that large," said Lt. Col. Warner Rhodes, deputy chief of the Virginia Marine Police. "We knew we had some freelancers. We didn't know they were all connected."
Scientists say that the illegal trafficking probably did not put a dent in the bay's overall rockfish population. The fish -- a key predator and a beloved sport fish, also known as striped bass -- has rebounded from desperate lows in the 1980s, in part because of restrictions on fishing.
According to court documents, the case played out like this:
In spring 2003, a pickup with Virginia plates and a refrigeration unit attached appeared in the far southern corner of St. Mary's, a region of thick pine woods and small towns. The truck said "Parks Seafood," and the man in charge said he was a seafood dealer named Kenneth Dunstan.
But he was really a Virginia marine police officer, and the men claiming to work with him were really another Virginia officer and a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigator. The company's name was a well-chosen fake: "Parks" is a common name in bayside communities, "kind of [a] Smith or Jones" among watermen, said John Bull, a spokesman for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.
They were investigating a tip from the Maryland Natural Resources Police that a small business called Golden Eye Seafood was buying fish that did not fit state standards. The states have set minimum and maximum size limits for rockfish to protect both the young of the species and the very large fish that spawn new generations.
By April, they had their first sale, those 11 oversized rockfish that a Golden Eye employee allegedly bought for $514.50. Over the next few months, documents say, they sold the business dozens more.
"So you don't say nothing, I won't say nothing," the agent said after one transaction.
"We gotta make some money, man," an employee replied.
As the investigation went on, documents say, the agents found people who wanted to sell illegal fish as well as buy them. So they became middlemen, incriminating people at both ends.
Court documents say they bought hundreds of rockfish from Joseph Nelson Sr. and Joseph Nelson Jr., fishermen from St. Mary's who have pleaded not guilty. Many of the fish were tagged as having been caught with hooks and lines, but the agents suspected they had actually been caught in a large net and should have been subject to different restrictions.
To prove it, they turned to a fish coroner.
A forensic scientist at a Fish and Wildlife Service lab in Oregon found that seven of the fish had no "evidence of hook wounds," the agent wrote in court papers. The 33 others, the agent wrote, were "unlikely" to have been caught by hooks. But it appeared that someone had tried to make it appear that they had: the fish seemed to have been stabbed in the mouth with "a sharp-edged instrument such as a knife," court papers say.
The fish in the case went on to New York, Philadelphia, Arlington County and Washington. Authorities say they probably ended up in seafood cases and on high-end restaurant plates, though it is unclear which businesses.
The only big-city buyers charged are Robert Moore Sr., who owned Cannon Seafood on 31st Street NW in Georgetown, and Robert Moore Jr., who worked there. They are accused of purchasing illegally harvested rockfish from Virginia and Maryland watermen from 2003 through 2007.
"They have fully accepted responsibility for what they've done and have cooperated with the authorities," said Thomas Abbenante, an attorney for the pair. He said that the business closed two years ago and that the younger Moore now operates a new business, Cannons Fishmarket, in its place.
Prosecutors said the covert buying and selling tailed off in 2007, though the case is ongoing, and investigators say they could file more charges.
Locals did not learn the secret of Parks Seafood until federal and state officers descended with search warrants for homes, warehouses and boats. The undercovers weren't there: the Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't allow it, believing that it only makes their targets more upset.
Now, a week after many of the suspects were charged, St. Mary's is upset anyway.
At Piney Point Market, the appearance of a reporter set one man to yelling, "Get on out of here!" At the W.J. Dent and Sons store, the clerk said he hadn't heard much about the enormous investigation that put his neighbors in federal court.
"You ain't going to get any news out of this county," a woman in line said, explaining the man's reticence. "You might as well go on back up the road."
"My guy is married, he's a clean guy, never been arrested at all, and he's trying to earn a living," said Louis Fireison, an attorney representing Joseph P. Nelson Jr. "He wasn't working with anybody to violate the laws. There was no conspiracy."
Robert Lumpkins, at whose warehouse the first buy was made, has not been charged. In two brief interviews this week, he said he could not discuss the case in detail without talking to his attorney.
"It's a mess," he said, from the driver's seat of a refrigerated truck. "I mean, we're just country boys."
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
Four-Year Undercover Probe Led to Charges of Rockfish Trafficking
By David A. Fahrenthold and Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 7, 2009; A01
The covert meeting that started it all happened in a warehouse set back in the Southern Maryland woods. The target had the money, $514.50.
The undercover officer had the fish.
He had 11 illegal rockfish, the stripe-sided beauties beloved by fishermen and diners. At this exchange, the stripers were the contraband: All were too big to be legal, protected so they could spawn new generations.
"You're sure this is all right?" asked the undercover operative, a Virginia police officer pretending to be a shady seafood dealer. He was fishing himself, trying to elicit a confession that the mark knew that what he was doing was wrong.
"I hear no evil, see no evil," the man said, according to court papers.
But somebody did.
That sale, in April 2003, helped launch a four-year covert investigation that authorities say revealed a web of people trafficking in illegal seafood from the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. The case became a dockside Donnie Brasco tale as agents used cover stories, recorded conversations and even a fish coroner to sketch links between a rural corner of Southern Maryland, a fish market in Georgetown and dinner plates along the East Coast.
Cheating is an old vice around the Chesapeake, with watermen sneaking in extra bushels of oysters or undersized perch.
Except for the man selling the illegal rockfish that day, it seems few people in the area thought somebody would make a federal case of it.
"I believe that most of them thought that the worst they were doing was only a state violation," said Robert T. Brown, president of the watermen's association in St. Mary's County, where much of the investigation took place. "They didn't know they were going to be in a federal court, I can tell you that."
Nine people have been charged in the case so far: seven fishermen along with a father and son from Georgetown's Cannon Seafood. They could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each violation of a federal wildlife protection statute. More likely, the sentences would range from probation to a year in jail. Two defendants have pleaded not guilty; the rest have signaled in court that they plan to plead guilty.
The case was the biggest of its kind in the region since at least the mid-1980s. Authorities say the traffickers moved about 600,000 pounds of illegal fish between 2003 and 2007, with a retail value between $3 million and $7 million.
"I don't think anybody knew it was quite that large," said Lt. Col. Warner Rhodes, deputy chief of the Virginia Marine Police. "We knew we had some freelancers. We didn't know they were all connected."
Scientists say that the illegal trafficking probably did not put a dent in the bay's overall rockfish population. The fish -- a key predator and a beloved sport fish, also known as striped bass -- has rebounded from desperate lows in the 1980s, in part because of restrictions on fishing.
According to court documents, the case played out like this:
In spring 2003, a pickup with Virginia plates and a refrigeration unit attached appeared in the far southern corner of St. Mary's, a region of thick pine woods and small towns. The truck said "Parks Seafood," and the man in charge said he was a seafood dealer named Kenneth Dunstan.
But he was really a Virginia marine police officer, and the men claiming to work with him were really another Virginia officer and a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigator. The company's name was a well-chosen fake: "Parks" is a common name in bayside communities, "kind of [a] Smith or Jones" among watermen, said John Bull, a spokesman for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.
They were investigating a tip from the Maryland Natural Resources Police that a small business called Golden Eye Seafood was buying fish that did not fit state standards. The states have set minimum and maximum size limits for rockfish to protect both the young of the species and the very large fish that spawn new generations.
By April, they had their first sale, those 11 oversized rockfish that a Golden Eye employee allegedly bought for $514.50. Over the next few months, documents say, they sold the business dozens more.
"So you don't say nothing, I won't say nothing," the agent said after one transaction.
"We gotta make some money, man," an employee replied.
As the investigation went on, documents say, the agents found people who wanted to sell illegal fish as well as buy them. So they became middlemen, incriminating people at both ends.
Court documents say they bought hundreds of rockfish from Joseph Nelson Sr. and Joseph Nelson Jr., fishermen from St. Mary's who have pleaded not guilty. Many of the fish were tagged as having been caught with hooks and lines, but the agents suspected they had actually been caught in a large net and should have been subject to different restrictions.
To prove it, they turned to a fish coroner.
A forensic scientist at a Fish and Wildlife Service lab in Oregon found that seven of the fish had no "evidence of hook wounds," the agent wrote in court papers. The 33 others, the agent wrote, were "unlikely" to have been caught by hooks. But it appeared that someone had tried to make it appear that they had: the fish seemed to have been stabbed in the mouth with "a sharp-edged instrument such as a knife," court papers say.
The fish in the case went on to New York, Philadelphia, Arlington County and Washington. Authorities say they probably ended up in seafood cases and on high-end restaurant plates, though it is unclear which businesses.
The only big-city buyers charged are Robert Moore Sr., who owned Cannon Seafood on 31st Street NW in Georgetown, and Robert Moore Jr., who worked there. They are accused of purchasing illegally harvested rockfish from Virginia and Maryland watermen from 2003 through 2007.
"They have fully accepted responsibility for what they've done and have cooperated with the authorities," said Thomas Abbenante, an attorney for the pair. He said that the business closed two years ago and that the younger Moore now operates a new business, Cannons Fishmarket, in its place.
Prosecutors said the covert buying and selling tailed off in 2007, though the case is ongoing, and investigators say they could file more charges.
Locals did not learn the secret of Parks Seafood until federal and state officers descended with search warrants for homes, warehouses and boats. The undercovers weren't there: the Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't allow it, believing that it only makes their targets more upset.
Now, a week after many of the suspects were charged, St. Mary's is upset anyway.
At Piney Point Market, the appearance of a reporter set one man to yelling, "Get on out of here!" At the W.J. Dent and Sons store, the clerk said he hadn't heard much about the enormous investigation that put his neighbors in federal court.
"You ain't going to get any news out of this county," a woman in line said, explaining the man's reticence. "You might as well go on back up the road."
"My guy is married, he's a clean guy, never been arrested at all, and he's trying to earn a living," said Louis Fireison, an attorney representing Joseph P. Nelson Jr. "He wasn't working with anybody to violate the laws. There was no conspiracy."
Robert Lumpkins, at whose warehouse the first buy was made, has not been charged. In two brief interviews this week, he said he could not discuss the case in detail without talking to his attorney.
"It's a mess," he said, from the driver's seat of a refrigerated truck. "I mean, we're just country boys."
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
