US District Court in Greenbelt, Md., has sentenced Thomas L. Hallock, a commercial fisherman licensed in Maryland, to 12 months in prison, for illegally overfishing striped bass also known as rockfish. According to the Justice Department he was also fined $4,000 and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $40,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to the benefit of the Chesapeake Bay Striped Bass Restoration Account.
John C. Cruden, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, comments that the prison sentence should serve as a warning to fishermen and wholesalers who may consider undercutting the market and risking the continuation of the striped bass population.
He also said that the fishing limits in the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River are designed to protect the healthy sustainable population of striped bass and ensure a viable fishery up and down the eastern seaboard.
Hallock of Catharpin, Va., pleaded guilty on Feb. 19, 2009, to falsely recording the amount of striped bass that he harvested from 2003 to 2007 with the assistance of a Maryland designated fish check-in station. It is informed that in each year, he failed to record some of the striped bass that was caught or recorded a lower weight of striped bass than was actually caught. Hallock and the check-in station operator would also falsely inflate the actual number of fish harvested.
Additionally, John Evans, a commercial fisherman who operated in St. Mary’s County and the surrounding waters of the Chesapeake Bay, was charged with a violation of the Lacey Act for overfishing striped bass. The charges contained in the criminal information are not a finding of guilt. An individual charged by criminal information is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. The Lacey Act carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 per offense.
