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PRISON URGED FOR POACHERS PROSECUTION
ARGUES ABALONE OPERATION BIGGEST ON N. COAST
Published on April 3, 1998
© 1998- The
Press Democrat
BYLINE: Clark Mason
Staff
Writer
PAGE: B1
In an unusual hearing in which a judge will determine
whether members of an abalone poaching ring deserve
state prison, a prosecutor and three defense attorneys argued
Thursday before a packed courtroom made up of sports fishermen
and coastal residents seeking a tough sentence, and family
members of the defendants hoping for leniency.
The defendants pleaded guilty in December and avoided a
trial. Because the Probation Department recommended jail
terms, prosecutors sought the hearing to argue the defendants
should be sent to state prison.
The prosecution called witnesses Thursday and will resume
this morning as it tries to demonstrate that the operation was
the biggest ever involving North Coast abalone.
Experts for the defense will get their chance to
testify next week.
The defendants bragged about buying a boatload of
illegal abalone in Bodega Bay for $45,000 and told a
game warden working undercover that they were willing to buy
the shellfish by the truckload, according to testimony
Thursday in Sonoma County Superior Court.
Fish and Game Warden Richard Vincent said the
defendants wanted to buy several hundred pounds a week from
him, even though they knew it was illegally taken from closed
waters.
``They said they would take all the abalone I
could get,'' said Vincent, who testified about an undercover
sting operation from April 1 to to May 29, 1997, in which the
defendants bought abalone on four occasions, in amounts
ranging from 80 to 119 pounds at a time, before making final
plans to buy more than 400 pounds.
The defendants, Jason Diep, 31, of El Monte; Loi Diep,
30, of Rosemead; and Christopher Doan, 30, of Cupertino, have
pleaded guilty to conspiracy to buy sport abalone and
sell it for commercial purposes.
Superior Court Judge Lawrence G. Antolini gave a
glimpse of how serious he considers the charges when he said,
``no judge on the bench believes abalone in essence
should be raped from the womb of the ocean.''
Antolini said he loves the Sonoma Coast and its
treasures. ``I want it to be here for my children's children's
children's children,'' he said.
Abalone is a fragile resource that officials say
is becoming increasingly targeted by poachers, particularly
now that there is a moratorium on commercial harvesting
throughout California.
At times during testimony about the sting operation,
Vincent seemed to be describing an undercover drug
transaction. But the contraband was abalone, an
expensive but tasty delicacy that can only be taken by sports
fishermen who are limited to four abalone a day during
the season.
Vincent described meeting with the defendants at a
restaurant in Petaluma where the conversation was secretly
recorded and they were videotaped buying one abalone
load from him and making plans to buy more.
More than a dozen Fish and Game employees participated
in each transaction, tailing the suspects to a seafood
distributor in San Francisco and in one instance keeping Doan
and the abalone under surveillance as he drove all the
way to Los Angeles.
Prosecutor Brooke Halsey Jr. is urging Antolini to send
the Dieps to prison for three years and Doan to prison for two
years.
The Sonoma County Probation Department recommended that
the men, who have no known criminal records, do no more than
one year in county jail and be given suspended state prison
sentences.
Defense attorneys Joe Stogner, Robert Y. Bell and
Isidoor Bornstein contend that the prosecution has wildly
exaggerated the scope of the operation, in particular claims
by Halsey that the defendants were ``the foremost exporters of
abalone in the United States at the time of this
conspiracy.''
Much of the all-day hearing Thursday consisted of legal
wrangling over the evidence the prosecution will be allowed to
present to Antolini for him to consider in sentencing.
Antolini did allow testimony from Vincent that the
Dieps claimed they bought a whole boatload of illicit
abalone from a sea urchin boat, and that the
abalone filled 18 40-gallon trash cans after being
unloaded in Bodega Bay.
PHOTO: color by Kent Porter/Press Democrat
Loi Diep,
center, Jason Diep, front, and Christopher Doan wait out a
recess in their sentencing hearing Thursday.
Keywords:
FISHING CRIME
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