(Breaking news) Waterman sentenced to 18 months in prison

Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009

A federal judge sentenced St. Mary's waterman Robert Lumpkins on Friday to 18 months in prison, prosecutors report, from his guilty plea to conspiring to falsely report rockfish catches.

Lumpkins also was ordered to pay a $36,000 fine and $164,040 in restitution from the scheme in which he and other watermen falsely reported the number and weight of fish checked in at his Golden Eye seafood business, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Overstating the number of fish caught and understating their weight allowed the watermen to get more state tags to catch more fish, to reach the maximum number of pounds of fish they could catch each year, from 2003 to 2007.

Fourteen other people have been convicted in the investigation, and their sentences thus far have ranged from four months of home detention to 15 months in prison, according to prosecutors. At Lumpkins' sentencing hearing last week, prosecutors portrayed him as a central figure in the scheme where they alleged as many as 200 tons of rockfish went unreported through his state-designated check-in station. Lumpkins' lawyers challenged those estimates and the prosecutors' contention that Lumpkins' misconduct amounted to a greater breach of the public trust than that of the other watermen.

jwharton@somdnews.com