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ABALONE SUSPECTS' BAIL INCREASED TO
$500,000
Published on June 3, 1997
© 1997- The
Press Democrat
BYLINE: Bony
Saludes
Staff Writer
PAGE: B1
The bail has been increased fivefold for three suspects
accused of selling poached Sonoma County abalone on the
black market -- to $500,000 each.
Chris N. Doan, 29, a Cupertino barber, appeared before
Municipal Court Judge Frank Passalacqua on Monday and was
arraigned on a felony charge of conspiracy to violate state
fish and game laws.
Doan and two commercial fishermen from Southern California,
Jason Diep, 30, of El Monte, and Loi Boa Diep, 29, of
Rosemead, were arrested Thursday as a result of a sting by
state fish and game wardens.
Game wardens said they seized 1.25 tons of
abalone meat, worth $234,000.
The Diep brothers are in custody in Los Angeles and are
expected to be transported to Sonoma County for prosecution
later in the week, defense lawyer L. Stephen Turer said.
Doan and the Diep brothers were arrested on $100,000
Sonoma County arrest warrants, but Superior Court Judge Cerena
Wong raised their bail to $500,000 at the request of
prosecutor Brooke Halsey Jr.
The judge set a bail hearing for Wednesday.
Halsey said the case, which is under investigation, may
result in other arrests and additional charges against the
defendants.
The Diep brothers and Doan, who acted as a middle man,
were carrying on both legal and illegal trading in
abalone and other seafood delicacies, selling the
products in Canada, Mexico and Vietnam, Halsey said.
In the past two months, a game warden, posing as a
sports diver, sold abalone represented to be from the
North Coast, a closed district, five times before the sixth
and final sale of 300 abalone last Thursday.
According to court documents, the Diep brothers
encouraged the undercover warden to contact other sports
divers in Sonoma County and to try to buy their sport-caught
abalone.
Keywords: FISH CRIME
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