Yellow perch illegally poached from Lake Erie Sandusky, OH (US) Incident Date: Monday, Dec 31, 2001 County: Erie Local Map: available Disposition: Convicted Abusers/Suspects: » Dale D Trent » Craig L Carr

Case ID: 6642 Classification: Unlawful Trapping/Hunting, Unlawful Trade/Smuggling Animal: marine animal (wild) View more cases in OH (US) Login to Watch this Case

On December 12, 2005, a judge delivered a whopper of a sentence to a pair of commercial fishermen who confessed to stealing tons of yellow perch from Lake Erie.

Dale Trent of Port Clinton and Craig Carr of Oak Harbor pleaded guilty to theft.

Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo found their company, Lake Fish in Sandusky, guilty of theft and operating as a criminal enterprise.

State wildlife officials who conducted the two-year investigation said the perch-poaching case was the first of its kind in the country. Six other commercial fishermen and Port Clinton Fish have perch-poaching cases pending in a different courtroom.

Russo spared Trent, 45, and Carr, 39, from prison but ordered them to pay restitution of $87,000 and to donate 500 pounds of perch fillets, with a value of more than $5,000, to a Sandusky soup kitchen.

Russo warned the defendants to abide by Ohio's fish quota requirements or risk spending four to 15 years behind bars and paying $43,000 in fines.

"This was a good, strong case," said Assistant County Prosecutor Paul Soucie. "According to [the Ohio Department of Natural Resources], no fisherman has ever pleaded guilty to racketeering charges or paid the kind of money that these guys will have to pay."

Trent and Carr face the threat of civil penalties in addition to the criminal sentences, said Kevin Ramsey, head of the state Division of Wildlife's Lake Erie enforcement section, which conducted the investigation. For the next five years, Lake Fish's commercial fishing boats must file daily catch and sales reports with ODNR, Ramsey said. Other commercial fishing operations are required to file only monthly reports.

Lake Fish, Trent and Carr signed agreements saying that if they break any fishing laws during the five-year monitoring, they will pay fines of $10,000 apiece and forfeit their commercial fishing licenses - documents valued at more than $1 million - plus face the prospect of Russo's criminal punishments. Neither of the defendants spoke on his own behalf.

Trent, Carr and Lake Fish were hooked as part of an extensive perch-poaching ring on Lake Erie. A grand jury indicted the five fishing companies and 14 commercial fishermen on charges of netting and selling 40 tons of yellow perch, with a value of nearly $1 million, in excess of their allotted quotas in 2002 and 2003, Ramsey said. Russo previously had taken pleas and sentenced seven defendants in the case. Ramsey said he expects to file additional charges next year against commercial fishermen whom he suspects of taking even larger amounts of illegal perch from the lake.

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The Plain Dealer - December 13, 2005

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