Tillamook County Circuit Court Judge Rick Roll has sentenced a Hammond fisherman a 30-day jail sentence and fine of $41,200 fine for illegal crab fishing. He was pleaded guilty in a 2007 commercial crab enforcement operation on the Oregon coast. Dennis Lee Sturgell, 56, from Hammond, was lodged in Tillamook County Jail to begin serving a 30-day sentence after he pleaded guilty in Tillamook County Circuit Court Friday to two counts of Unlawful Use of Commercial Crab Pots.
According to the court the fine amount $41,200 was in restitution to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commercial Fish Fund. The conviction was the result of a 2007 case when the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon State Police Fish & Wildlife Division conducted a joint commercial crab enforcement operation off of the Oregon Coast.
It was the first year when the State of Oregon introduced a limit on the number of commercial crab pots that any one vessel could fish. Sturgell was found that his fishing operation was not legal. The commercial Dungeness crab fishery is one of the largest commercial fisheries on the Oregon Coast.
The new crab pot limit was recommended by the industry to limit the amount of crab pots fishing in the ocean at any one time. Prior to the crab pot limit vessels could fish unlimited amounts of commercial crab gear during the commercial Dungeness crab season.
