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JURY INDICTS 12 FOR ABALONE POACHING
COASTAL RING LARGEST EVER IN STATE
Published on February 8, 1995
© 1995- The
Press Democrat
BYLINE: Bony
Saludes
Staff Writer
PAGE: B4
The Sonoma County grand jury has indicted 12 suspects in an
abalone-poaching operation off the Sonoma County coast,
which state and county authorities say was the biggest ever in
the state.
The suspects are accused of illegally taking about 20
tons of abalone from five different locations along the
coast over a period of months and sending them to a San Diego
fish buyer where some of the mollusks were shipped overseas,
District Attorney J. Michael Mullins said.
Fish and Game officials said the 40,000 pounds of illegally
picked abalone are equivalent to 25 percent of the
total legal catch of abalone for the entire state in
1994. Commercial abalone harvesting is illegal north of
Half Moon Bay.
Street prices for abalone range from $40 to $60
a pound, game wardens said.
``This is a lot larger than we ever anticipated,''
prosecutor Brooke Halsey Jr. said. ``Unfortunately, this is
not the only group operating off the Sonoma County coast.''
He said unless the public can provide information to
Fish & Game, the department does not have sufficient staff
to go after all the poachers.
Halsey said the abalone, plucked by scuba
divers, were processed in a ``safe house'' in Cazadero and
shipped to San Diego for sales overseas and to the East Coast.
``There's one phrase that describes what they've done
-- rape of the coast,'' Halsey said of the suspects.
The 17-count indictment charging conspiracy to violate
state Fish and Game laws names eight suspects who were
previously arrested and charged with similar offenses last
September after a nine-month probe.
``We decided to pursue an indictment because the
investigation developed further information and to avoid a
lengthy preliminary hearing with so many defendants,'' Mullins
said.
Among those charged in the indictment is Van Howard
Johnson, 36, San Diego, owner of Ocean Safari Seafood of San
Diego, to whom the alleged poachers shipped their catches.
Also charged are Jerry Wade Mitchell, 30; Eddie Wayne
Blay, 37; Debra Blay, 35; Paul Scott Saunders, 33; Michael
David Kagley, 35, and Darren Frank Natman, all of Santa Rosa;
and Randall Lee Blay, 24, of Redding.
New suspects include Armantino Leslie Vichi, 31; August
Angelo Vichi, 36; Michael Anthony Vichi, 38; and Arthur Allen
Webber, 37, all of Santa Rosa. Michael Vichi was still at
large on Tuesday.
Halsey said the suspects, besides facing 3 years in
state prison if convicted, are charged under a special
provision of the law which calls for fines from $20,000 to
$40,000 for sports fishermen involved in commercial harvesting
of abalone.
Ten of the 12 suspects appeared Tuesday before Superior
Court Judge Raymond Giordano, who continued their cases until
Thursday for pleas and setting of a trial date. All are free
without bail.
Keywords: FISHING
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