ABALONE PROSECUTIONS RISE
Published on June 3, 2000
© 2000- The Press
Democrat
LORI CARTER
Staff Writer
Abalone poaching arrests and prosecutions have increased
steadily on the North Coast as state Fish and Game laws have been
enforced.
Since the mid-1990s, the Sonoma County District Attorney's
Office has prosecuted more than 40 felony conspiracy cases, said
Deputy District Attorney Brooke Halsey Jr.
The cases have ranged from six abalone -- two over the
legal limit -- to 20 tons of abalone taken over time.
Convictions have ranged from probation to the maximum three-year
prison term and fines of $50,000.
``Each season brings new ones,'' said Halsey, who has become
the abalone poaching expert for the district attorney's
office.
State law prohibits the commercial harvest of the delicacy
north of San Francisco Bay, and the seven-month abalone
season for sport divers is closed during July. Individuals are
allowed to take four abalone a day up to 100 a year.
Taking abalone at night on the North Coast is
prohibited and only snorkel gear is allowed for divers in the highly
regulated sport. Scuba gear enables a diver to take the tasty
mollusks from their deeper havens. It is illegal to harvest an
abalone smaller than 7 inches long.
Some of the largest abalone poaching cases on the
North Coast include:
1992 -- Darrell J. Tattman of Lincoln was sentenced to three
years in prison for poaching in Mendocino County. Also convicted in
Sonoma and Marin counties, he was ordered to pay $43,500 in fines
and penalties and to forfeit his boat. Tattman was the first person
in California to get a state prison sentence for violating Fish and
Game laws.
1993 -- Four San Jose residents were fined $21,600 after
pleading guilty to taking 123 abalone from Mendocino County
tidal pools.
1994 -- A dozen poachers, mostly Sonoma County scuba divers,
were accused of taking 20 tons of abalone, valued at more
than $1 million, from a 5-mile stretch of Sonoma Coast near Fort
Ross over a year's time. Fish and Game officials said the 40,000
pounds of illegally picked abalone were equivalent to 25
percent of the total legal catch of abalone for the entire
state in 1994.
Van Howard ``Hojo'' Johnson, a 28-year-old San Diego
commercial fisherman, bought most of the abalone, then sold
it to more lucrative East Coast and Asian markets, according to
state game wardens. Michael Kagley of Santa Rosa, one of the
masterminds of the operation, later became an undercover informant
and helped investigators gather evidence resulting in grand jury
indictments against himself and the others.
1995 -- Four suspected poachers were arrested in one of the
biggest illegal abalone seizures in Mendocino Coast history.
The men, three from the Bay Area and one from Sacramento, were
caught after they hauled 309 abalone up the bluffs to their
parked van north of Navarro Beach.
1996 -- Johnson, the central figure in the 1994 poaching
operation, was sentenced to the maximum prison term of three years
and fined $50,000 for felony conspiracy. His commercial fishing
license was permanently revoked, prohibiting him from making a
living from fishing in California.
1997 -- Fish and Game wardens climaxed a yearlong sting
operation by breaking up a large, Sonoma County-based abalone
poaching ring with arrests in Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties.
Officials seized about 1.25 tons of abalone meat with a
market value of $234,600, the largest single seizure ever, and
arrested three suspects, Jason Diep and Loi Bao Diep of Los Angeles
and Chris Doan of Cupertino.
1998 -- Loi Bao Diep, Jason Diep and Doan pleaded guilty to
one felony count of conspiracy to possess abalone for
commercial purposes and were sentenced to five years' probation plus
time in the county jail, 12 months for the Dieps and nine months for
Doan, and ordered to pay $40,000 each. The judge ruled that all of
the 1.25 tons of abalone seized in connection with the case
could not be connected to the defendants or shown to have all come
from Sonoma County.
1999 -- A major Bay Area abalone ring, suspected of
illegally taking thousands of abalone from the Sonoma and
Mendocino coasts and selling them for as much as $1 million on the
black market, was broken up. Eleven men and women were booked into
Sonoma County Jail and five more were taken to Mendocino County
Jail, suspected of illegally harvesting abalone. At least
nine of the suspects were booked on felony conspiracy charges, which
could carry five-year prison sentences and fines as high as $40,000.
Five face a grand jury hearing Monday in Mendocino County. Seven
others prosecuted in Sonoma County were convicted of felony
conspiracy, one still faces trial and the others were convicted of
misdemeanors.
2000 -- Eighteen East Bay residents were arrested this week
in a two-day raid. They were suspected of poaching as many as 1,000
abalone each month from the Mendocino and Sonoma coasts
during the past six years, valued at as much as $2.1 million on the
black market.
Press Democrat researcher Vonnie Matthews contributed to this
report.
Infobox:
ABALONE CHECKPOINT
The California Department of Fish and Game will conduct an
abalone checkpoint Sunday along the Sonoma County coast. The
checkpoint will begin at 8 a.m. at an undisclosed location on
Highway 1.
Keywords: FISHING CRIME LIST STATISTICS
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