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NO-PRISON DEAL FOR POACHING
REJECTED
Published on January 31, 1996
© 1996- The
Press Democrat
BYLINE: Bony
Saludes
Staff Writer
PAGE: A1
Two men accused of helping to mastermind the biggest
abalone poaching operation in the state's history may
be headed to state prison after a Sonoma County Superior Court
judge Tuesday withdrew a plea bargain he had earlier struck
with the pair.
Judge Raymond Giordano withdrew the no-prison deal,
saying he changed his mind after reading reports that
described the magnitude of the environmental crime committed
over a year's time on the Sonoma County coast.
State Fish and Game officials said the poachers illegally
plucked 20 tons of abalone -- commercially valued at
more than $1 million- from several spots along a 5mile stretch
near Fort Ross.
``After reading the reports, I find that their
involvement was more serious than it first appeared,''
Giordano said. ``I had to reflect on it and kick it around in
my head to resolve it.''
He said he's now convinced Eddie Blay and Angelo Vichi,
Santa Rosa divers accused of helping to craft the operation,
should go to prison.
Giordano said he was not influenced by letters he
received protesting the plea bargain nor by the 35 sports
fishermen who appeared in his court Monday to protest the
``weak sentences'' in the case.
Over objections from the prosecution, Giordano in
December made a deal not to send Blay, Vichi and Van Howard
``Hojo'' Johnson, a San Diego fish buyer, to prison if they
pleaded no contest to a felony charge of conspiring to violate
fish and game laws.
On Tuesday, Giordano told Blay and Vichi they can
accept a two-year state prison term or withdraw their pleas
and go to trial. Vichi withdrew his plea immediately, and Blay
will decide what to do Tuesday.
Prosecutor Brooke Halsey Jr., who has been urging
prison for some of the dozen defendants, said, ``I'm happy the
court found that state prison is appropriate.''
``That's what we've been working for in this case,''
Halsey said. ``That's where they belong.''
Jonathan Steele and John LemMon, lawyers for Blay and
Vichi, said they were surprised and ``disappointed'' by the
decision.
Steele said Blay's options now are to accept two-year
prison term or go to trial and risk the maximum of three years
in prison if convicted.
Steele said the turn of events is ironic because when
the plea bargain was struck the defense lawyers were told the
poaching had caused ``permanent damage'' to the ecosystem, yet
the prosecution's abalone expert Monday testified the
resource was adversely impacted but not destroyed.
Vichi, who said he's been diving off the coast for 20
years, denied he had anything to do with the poaching
operation.
``I don't know what they have against me,'' he said.
Halsey says Vichi was in at the start of the operation
along with others, including Michael Kagley, who eventually
became a confidential informant and worked as an undercover
agent to crack the operation.
Kagley has pleaded guilty, but he's agreed to testify
against any of the co-defendants before he is sentenced.
Halsey said in court documents there is evidence Vichi
sent a 252-pound shipment of abalone by plane to
Johnson, who was paying divers $15 a pound for abalone
meat.
Vichi said he worked with Kagley in construction at Sea
Ranch and there are ``innocent explanations'' for all the
contacts he had with Kagley and some of the other defendants.
Johnson, who is accused of setting up the operation,
was going to be sentenced Monday, but Giordano continued his
case to Tuesday because his probation report wasn't ready.
The judge has given no indication what he intends to do
with Johnson. But considering his decision in the Blay and
Vichi case, he also is expected to withdraw the no-prison deal
he made with Johnson.
Giordano also surprised Eddie Blay's wife, Debra Blay,
on Tuesday when he sentenced her to three years in prison,
suspended the sentence and placed her on five years probation.
Debra Blay, the mother of a 13-year-old and a
10-year-old, must spend a year in the county jail and pay
$20,000 into the North Coast Abalone Restoration fund.
She also was sentenced to a concurrent two-year term
for felony welfare fraud -- failing to report the illicit
proceeds from the poaching operation while receiving welfare
benefits and food stamps. That sentence also was suspended.
Her lawyer, L. Stephen Turer, said he was disappointed
with the sentence because the deal called for the judge not to
spell out a specific prison term. Giordano offered to let
Debra Blay to withdraw her plea if she didn't like it, but she
accepted the sentence.
``They didn't make a lot of money out of this,'' Turer
said. ``They got sucked into it by Kagley.''
Debra Blay, whose home was used as a processing and
distribution center for the poaching operation in its later
stages, claimed she and her husband received only $5,000 to
$6,000 from Johnson, but Halsey said there's evidence they got
around $20,000.
On Monday, Giordano gave four other defendants
probation, jail terms of 60 days to a year and ordered them to
make payments of $10,000 and $12,000 into the abalone
restoration fund.
Two other defendants who previously were sentenced also
got probation and were ordered to pay a total of $30,000 into
the fund. One defendant, Armantino Vichi, had his sentencing
continued to Feb. 28.
Halsey said the commercial value of the illegal
abalone, combined with the environmental and economic
damage from the poaching, totals about more than $2 million.
PHOTO: b&w mugs; Blay, Vichi
Keywords:
YEAR END FISHING CRIME SENTENCE
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