Two Members of Gosman Family Guilty in Fish Scheme

It appears the feds aren't fooling around with this one. Court papers show the Gosmans admitted to selling over $240,000 of over quota fluke and sea bass. They will pay $50,000 and get two years probation for falsifying dealer reports. Another commercial fisherman charged has pleaded innocent.

None of Gosmans Dock at Montauk were named in the operation.

Nobody should be above the law, even if they are respected members of the community

$50k is a drop in the bucket for them, not even close to being stiff enough to prevent them in the future. They will lay low for awhile then do it again , no doubt in my mind

I remember years ago on my friends boat and we tied up at Gosmans to unload his catch....has to be winched up off the boat. We look up and there's a DEC guy checking a shellfish violation at Gosmans. He also checked our catch when it was hauled up....we were ok...but gosmans had a problem. You saved on shipping charges selling to gosmans. My friend was a pinhooker......we usually went for stripers...porgy and fluke.

Why wasn't the fine equal to the original amount they pocketed? Just ridiculous. . .

And I think we'd all agree they probably made a lot more than that. This is what they caught doing. Does anyone think they're the only ones doing this? I don't.

And I think we'd all agree they probably made a lot more than that. This is what they caught doing. Does anyone think they're the only ones doing this? I don't.

Absolutely, it's just nice when they get caught, like "The Codfather" of New Bedford did!!

March 9, 2016

Curse of the Codfather​

Jessica Hathaway​

Last week the Northeast fishing community was abuzz after New Bedford’s scallop king and “Codfather” Carlos Rafael was arrested and charged with corruption.

Everyone in New England fisheries knows the name Carlos Rafael and recognizes his fleet of cash-colored boats, emblazoned with CR on the bow. When scallop quotas went to an IFQ system, Rafael invested in the bulk of New Bedford’s lot. He was the right guy at the right time.

But the boon of Northeast scallops was not Rafael’s problem. He also owns a considerable amount of quota (and nearly 80 percent of the New Bedford boats) in the Northeast groundfish sector system. In that fishery, like every other permit holder, he was working within the increasingly problematic confines of sector quotas, or IFQs.

Unfortunately for Rafael, his bookkeeper and the rest of the groundfish industry, he’s been accused of conspiring to mislabel fish as a fraudulent end-run around quota management. Rafael was both boat owner and seafood broker, allegedly buying fish from his own boats, labeling some of the low-quota premium species as haddock and other abundant stocks, and then selling them for cash at the premium price of the correct species.

But this is not simply a story about fishing conspiracy and mislabeling. This is about money, power and a management system that left the back door propped open.

Any industry is susceptible to corruption, and the lack of permit caps is the Achilles heel of the groundfish quota system. Consolidation can put too much power in the hands of a single decision-maker. If permit caps had been a part of the sector management amendment, then Rafael would not have employed the bulk of the Massachusetts groundfish fleet. Each captain who allegedly colluded with him would have been independent business owners and would have had to conspire to commit fraud individually rather than cooperating as his employees. That doesn't make fraud impossible, but it makes it less likely.

Rafael himself railed against the rest of the groundfish fleet's lobbying effort to establish permit caps. That was the prop holding the back door open, and they knew it. He was the wrong guy at the right time.

None of the alleged crimes is justifiable or excusable. This case will cast a pall over all of the honest fishermen who stuck to their quotas, despite their lack of faith in the data. The scope and breadth of the charges against Rafael reflect poorly on the entire industry. Some say he kept the groundfish industry running in Massachusetts, and that may be true. But at what cost?

I hope this isn't the death knell of the Northeast groundfish fleet. I hope we will use this as an opportunity to take a hard look at the management gaps as well as the culture of this fishery. Mistrust in the data and federal assessments based on that data is a pervasive and persistent problem. The Northeast Fisheries Science Center is now making genuine efforts to address the failings of many years of flawed data collection. But until the managers have a history of compiling fair and accurate data on which to make their assessments, the fishermen will have little trust in the process.

Does anyone think they're the only ones doing this? I don't.

That is really not the point right.
You have nab these pricks one case at a time

These are they type of guys that have and are still destroying our fisheries not only for us but for our children , grandchildren etc

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This

They could hire 10,000 DEC Police Officers if they were serious about fining people. The Crooks pay off the Crook Politicians and the DEC has a tiny staff to patrol a huge area. Just enough to let them know they're around but not enough to do real damage to business. My summer home is in Chenango County. Chenango County has 3 times the land area that Nassau County has and only 3 DEC Conservation Officers patrol the 7 M region that includes parts of Broome, Chenango and Madison Counties. DEC Conservation Officers are State Troopers with an emphasis in Conservation Law, they can pull you over for speeding, going thru a red light . they can easily cover their salaries doing traffic enforcement alone, so why are there so few of them ???????

So Gosmans was caught and gets a slap on the wrist. This is the one and only reason why guys choose to break the law...ODDS ARE THEY WONT GET CAUGHT!

If Gosmans books were scoured through and turned over to the IRS do you think they reported all their sales and paid the appropriate taxes???

But lo and behold, DEC, IRS and ever other enforcement agency is understaffed and underfunded so this situation is not going to change any time soon!

So Gosmans was caught and gets a slap on the wrist. This is the one and only reason why guys choose to break the law...ODDS ARE THEY WONT GET CAUGHT!

If Gosmans books were scoured through and turned over to the IRS do you think they reported all their sales and paid the appropriate taxes???

But lo and behold, DEC, IRS and ever other enforcement agency is understaffed and underfunded so this situation is not going to change any time soon!

Name me one government agency that isn't constantly whining that they're understaffed and underfunded.

Just sayin'.