It is said that Merchant signed more than $22,000 worth of checks for a co-conspirator at Smith’s Lobster Co. in Jonesport last year. He was sentenced in Washington County Superior Court to four years incarceration, with all but 12 months suspended. As per the information Merchant admitted to writing $22,507 in illegal checks for a fellow co-worker, Joseph Doherty, whose case is still pending, while both worked for the lobster company.
Merchant’s attorney, Jeffrey Davidson of East Machias, explained that Merchant was in desperate financial straits after a 2008 divorce in which his ex-wife was awarded his lobster fishing boat. Davidson said Merchant never saw any of the money from the checks but was instead paid with fictitious landing slips — slips that indicated he had been fishing in federal waters.
It is said that Merchant needed proof that he had been fishing to retain his federal commercial fishing license. Justice E. Allen Hunter told Merchant, however, that at 49 years old, he “simply should have known better.” In addressing the court, William Smith, owner of Smith’s Lobster Co., told Hunter that because of the theft he had been unable to raise enough money to pay his usual end-of-the-year bonuses.
