Keys Treasures Blog

3 Lower Florida Keys Lobster Mobsters Arrested

Keys — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:19:25 +0000

BY ADAM LINHARDT Citizen Staff
alinhardt@keysnews.com

Three Lower Keys men accused of poaching more than 100 undersized lobsters and out-of-season stone crab off Little Torch Key, including a commercial fisherman and his son, were charged by state wildlife officials Thursday.

Benjamin Joseph White, 41, and his son, Christopher Joseph White, 18, both of Little Torch Key, and Edward Arthur Brusseau, 45, of Big Pine Key, were arrested on misdemeanor charges of possessing undersized wrung lobster tails and stone crab claws out of season.

Benjamin White was also charged with a misdemeanor for having expired boat tags and Brusseau faces additional misdemeanor charges of possession of under 20 grams of marijuana and pot paraphernalia.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officers allege the elder White and Brusseau possessed 89 undersized wrung lobster tails and six stone crab claws. Christopher White allegedly possessed 13 undersized wrung tails and one stone crab claw, agency spokesman Bobby Dube said.

Florida stone crab season does not begin until Oct. 15.

The officers were in the “right place at the right time” at 5 a.m. Thursday when the trio was tying up in the mangroves, far from any marina or boat ramp, Dube said.

All three had been fishing with a bully net, a legal method employed at night when lobsters are walking along the flats. A flashlight helps spot the crayfish and a net attached to a long pole is placed on top of them, Dube said.

“Their eyes shine a like a deer in the shallow water and you can just scoop them up that way,” Dube said.

• In an unrelated case, the state also charged a 37-year-old Coral Springs woman with transporting lobsters from Marathon to a Pompano Beach fish house without a state license, trip tickets or bill of sale — all misdemeanors.

Illegal Fish Traps Found Near Looe Key

Keys — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:54:49 +0000

BY TIMOTHY O’HARA Citizen Staff
tohara@keysnews.com

Authorities are looking for an unscrupulous fisherman, or group of them, who placed illegal fish traps off Looe Key, one of the Florida Keys’ most protected and pristine coral reef patches.

The first trap was found July 30 anchored to a coral head to keep it from moving from its position, and the second was found last week, both on the reef line outside of the Looe Key Special Protection Area off Big Pine Key, which is a no-fishing zone, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary spokeswoman Karrie Carnes said.

The traps, wire cages with no biodegradable components, would kill fish if they went unchecked.

“There is no way they would open up on their own,” Carnes said.

The trap, designed with apparently new construction materials, led officials to believe the gear had been put in the water relatively recently “to intentionally poach from Keys waters,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Special Agent Kenneth Blackburn said. “To date we’ve found two subsurface traps, but there could be hundreds more indiscriminately harvesting from the sanctuary.”

Fish traps for large species such as snapper and grouper are illegal in Florida state and federal waters, though they can be used to catch small baitfish.

The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council banned new traps in 1987 and phased out existing ones over a 10-year period. The South Atlantic Fishery Council followed suit in 1988, banning traps in the ocean’s federal waters 3 miles off the coast between North Carolina and Florida. One exception is small traps for black sea bass, mainly off the Carolinas. The Florida Legislature banned traps in state waters even earlier, in 1980, but allows traps for small bait and shellfish.

Fish traps have been a touchy issue in the Keys and across the state. Fishermen and environmentalists have long and vehemently opposed them, saying they indiscriminately catch too many other fish that die as they are brought to the surface, including angelfish, surgeonfish and other fish important to keeping reefs healthy.

North Florida’s long-line fishermen earlier this year asked that fish traps be allowed again, but the fishery management councils rejected the idea.

Key Largo Lobster Mobsters Sentenced to Jail Time

Keys — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 03:47:25 +0000

By DAVID GOODHUE
dgoodhue@keysreporter.com

Michael Cavagnaro, the former Key Largo elected official convicted of molesting lobster traps in June, was denied a new trial Friday and sentenced to nine months in county jail.

His son, 33-year-old Michael Cavagnaro Jr., was sentenced to four months in jail.

Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Luis Garcia also sentenced both men to four years probation and eight hours a month of community service, ordered their commercial fishing licenses revoked and banned them from the water on both the oceanside and bayside of Monroe County.

Bill Heffernan, the attorney who represented both men during their trial and only the younger Cavagnaro at Friday’s sentencing hearing, said he and Joel Hirschhorn, the elder Cavagnaro’s attorney, have filed an appeal with the state’s Third Court of Appeal.

“I truly believe they are innocent. This is a sad case,” Heffernan said in an interview.

Garcia set bail at $50,000 each. It was not clear at press time if the father and son posted bail and were released.

The Cavagnaros, both commercial lobster fishermen, were charged with tampering with another commercial angler’s trap on Aug. 25, 2009. At the time, Cavagnaro was an elected member of the Key Largo Fire and Emergency Medical Services District. Gov. Charlie Crist removed him from office following his arrest.

A jury convicted the men on June 23.

Heffernan argued during Friday’s hearing at the Plantation Key Courthouse that “the weight of the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict in this case.” He also said several of the tactics used by the prosecution unfairly prejudiced the jury.

First, Heffernan argued that prosecutors violated Garcia’s instructions not to mention anything that happened 14 days beyond Aug. 25, 2009.

During the trial, prosecutor Colleen Dunne questioned Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers and several fishermen. They testified that no traps belonging to the Cavagnaros were found in the area where witnesses said the Cavagnaros had pulled another fisherman’s trap.

The FWC officers checked the area more than 14 days after the Cavagnaros were arrested. Heffernan argued that mentioning that in the trial violated Garcia’s instructions. Dunne countered that since the elder Cavagnaro claimed he and his son were in the area checking on their traps that day, it was the FWC’s responsibility to verify if any were there. None were ever found, she said.

Heffernan also argued for a new trial based on a witness he said Dunne called to the stand specifically to humiliate. Dunne said she called the witness, Michael Cavagnaro’s girlfriend, because the defense had said she would testify but then removed her name. Her testimony did not match earlier statements she made, which Dunne pointed out while she was on the stand.

The Cavagnaros hadn’t planned to testify during the four-day trial, Heffernan said, but were forced to after Cavagnaro’s girlfriend’s testimony differed from her deposition on key areas of the case.

Hirschhorn also tried to get results of a polygraph test he arranged for the Cavagnaros submitted as evidence for a new trial. Both men scored high on the questions they were asked, Hirschhorn said. “They were two of the highest scores I have ever seen,” he said.

Garcia denied the request, saying polygraph results are not reliable, and these results were particularly questionable because the defense hired the technician and no one from law enforcement was present. “The stress levels are a lot different when the results do not have to be considered,” Garcia said.

Heffernan and Hirschhorn offered several other arguments in their motion for a new trial, all of which Garcia denied.

Trap molesting is a third-degree felony, and third-degree felonies can in some cases be punishable by up to five years in prison. But a law passed by the state Legislature went into effect last summer that makes it almost impossible for a judge to sentence prison time for a non-violent third-degree felony. Prosecutors must prove the person would be a threat to society if he or she were not incarcerated, Garcia said.

Nevertheless, Dunne wanted the Cavagnaros sentenced to two years in prison, arguing to Garcia that they were a threat to the Keys’ commercial fishing industry.

“[The law] doesn’t mean they have to be a violent threat… . “They molested traps from brother fishermen who were already suffering from the down economy,” Dunne said

Garcia disagreed, taking into account the scores of letters from neighbors, former colleagues and family members praising the men’s characters and past good deeds, as well as the elder Cavagnaro’s service as a member of the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Department. He worked for Palm Beach County from the 1980s to 2001, when he left on disability because of work-related injuries.

Garcia said he also took into account the elder Cavagnaro’s time volunteering at Ground Zero in Manhattan days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

One elderly man told Garcia that the Cavagnaros went out of their way to help their neighbors on several occasions.

“”My wife has taken ill several times recently, and Mike was at the door every single time,” neighbor Donald Balletti said. “It’s totally inconceivable that he would be involved in something like this.”

Fenn Kayak Found Off Key Largo After 6 Week 600 Mile Trip

Keys — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 22:54:52 +0000

Few sights evoke such dreadful uncertainty as an unoccupied vessel adrift at sea. Fears for ill-fated passengers quickly arise from the only immediate clue. Fortunately, the case of a kayak spotted drifting off Key Largo recently ended favorably, as the U.S. Coast Guard located the vessel’s owner alive and well at his home in the Cayman Islands. Apparently, the kayak was lost at sea for about six weeks and drifted roughly 600 miles from the Cayman Islands to the Straits of Florida.

According to a Coast Guard report, identifying the owner involved extensive international collaboration. A Key Largo boater initially notified watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Key West, Fla., that the kayak was found drifting six miles east of Key Largo. Coast Guard responders searched the local area to find the owner and confirm no one was in distress. Once local search efforts were completed, the Coast Guard expanded its search and contacted a Fenn kayak distributor in Costa Mesa, Calif.

Notably, Fenn kayaks are manufactured in South Africa and sold by only two kayak distributors in the U.S. One of the distributors posted an online notice, which was spotted by the owner’s friend in Mauritius, an African country off the east coast of Madagascar, who contacted the owner in the Cayman Islands. The owner is now making plans to retrieve the lost kayak.

“This case was a good exercise for our search and rescue planners,” said Capt. Pat DeQuattro, commander of Coast Guard Sector Key West. “I’m very pleased with their determination and initiative to track down the owner of this unique kayak.”

Lobster Mobsters Get Early Start on Mini Season

Keys — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:47:10 +0000

By KEVIN WADLOW
kwadlow@keynoter.com

A Tampa man was charged Sunday with trying to get a three-day head start on lobster season in the Lower Keys. Leon A. Shabott, 46, faces misdemeanor conservation counts for taking 39 out-of-season lobster after Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers found him scuba diving in the Gulf of Mexico, north of Cudjoe Key.

According to the FWC, Shabott was diving off a private boat between the Content Keys and Sawyer Keys around 2:30 p.m. As a patrol boat approached, the operator of the private boat reportedly gunned the engines — which FWC operators interpreted as a warning to the diver.

Officer Jimmy Johnson reported that the diver tried to swim away from the area underwater but was easily tracked by his bubbles. Shabott surfaced and was taken into custody. FWC Officer Seth Wingard donned snorkel gear to search the area, and recovered a bag containing 39 wrong lobster tails. Three of the tails were undersized.

Shabott was booked on singular counts of taking 39 out-of-season lobster, possession of wrung tails on the water, possession of three undersized lobster, and exceeding the recreational bag limit.

FWC spokesman Bobby Dube said divers at Indian Key Fill in Islamorada were charged with taking lobster out of season last weekend, after being observed by an officer in plain clothes. The suspects, from the Miami area, had only a few lobster and were cooperative, Dube said.

Key West Lobster Fest 2010

Keys — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:35:51 +0000

KEY WEST, Florida Keys — Melted butter is optional, but a taste for crustaceans is essential at the 14th annual Key West Lobsterfest scheduled Friday through Sunday, Aug. 6-8. The festival commemorates the start of the Florida Keys lobster season with events that include an open-air lobster feast on Key West’s famed Duval Street.

Florida lobsters, sometimes called spiny lobsters, are known for their sweet, tender meat. Unlike their northern cousins, the spiny specimens have no claws.
Purists savor them steamed, with each bite dipped in melted butter. They also can be baked and stuffed, served cold in salads or incorporated into dishes ranging from bisques to fritters to omelets.

The festival’s enticing “entrée” is the Key West Lobsterfest Street Fair, set for noon through 11 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 7, in the 100 through 500 blocks of Duval.
Lobster lovers can sample dishes ranging from tempting appetizers to traditional lobster dinners with all the trimmings. Chefs from as many as 20 local restaurants are to prepare specialties featuring fresh crustaceans caught by Florida Keys lobster fishermen.

Attendees also can browse and buy art, crafts and merchandise from on-site vendors.

A free outdoor concert is slated to begin at 1 p.m. and continue through 10:30 p.m. from a stage at the intersection of Duval and Greene streets. The talent lineup includes top local and regional acts Alphonse, Bubba System, Cool Breeze and Techno Dread.

Other Lobsterfest events include a kick-off party Friday, Aug. 6, at Rick’s/Durty Harry’s Entertainment Complex, 202 Duval St., a Friday night Duval Crawl and a mouthwatering lobster brunch Sunday, Aug. 8.

The crustacean celebration benefits a scholarship fund for Key West High School students.

For more information, visit www.keywestlobsterfest.com or e-mail info@ricksanddurtyharrys.com. For accommodations information in Key West, call the Key West Chamber of Commerce at 1-800-LAST-KEY (800-527-8539) or visit the Keys website at www.fla-keys.com.

More Lobster Mobsters Arrested

Keys — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:05:00 +0000

CITIZEN STAFF

http://keysnews.com/

Wildlife officers chased two suspected lobster poachers Saturday as they reportedly attempted to out-swim a state boat near Ohio Key, just east of Bahia Honda State Park.

One of the men swam to Sunshine Key Camping Resort in the hope of outrunning Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers, but was captured after a foot chase through the campground, agency spokesman Bobby Dube said.

Ivan Rodriguez, 46, and Nelson Amaro-Montesino, 27, both of Miami, were charged with taking lobster out of season, snorkeling with no dive flag, interfering with an officer and resisting arrest — all misdemeanors.

Officers found 31 lobsters in a dive bag and spearfishing equipment in the water after their arrest, Dube said. Of the 31 lobster, about a third were undersized and had been speared, he said.

The agency received a call around 7 p.m., reporting that two men were in the water just outside the Ohio Key Channel without a dive flag, Dube said. He did not know whether the call came from a boater or someone driving over the bridge. Two officers responded and watched the men from a distance before stopping them, Dube said.

“They tried to swim to shore and wouldn’t get in our boat,” Dube said.

As officers followed the men, Amaro-Montesino tired and eventually boarded the agency’s vessel, Dube said. Rodriguez made it to shore before officers corralled him in the campground, Dube said.

The Monroe County State Attorney’s Office is reviewing the case, and more charges could be pending, Dube said.

Back in the channel, officers found a milk jug with a spear gun tied to it and a bag containing lobster.

Both men were taken to jail in Marathon and county Judge Tegan Slaton set their bond at $74,000.

The lobster “mini season” runs July 28 and 29. Regular season begins on Aug. 6 and runs through March 31. It is illegal to spearfish for lobster any time, anywhere in Florida.

Key Largo Lobster Mobsters Convicted

Keys — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:47:17 +0000

By GARY PHILLIPS
KeysNews.com
Saturday, June 12, 201

Nearly nine months to the day after being accused of molesting a commercial lobster trap, two Key Largo men were convicted on third-degree felony charges.

Ruben Barbuscio, 62, and Daniel Peralta, 53, were led in handcuffs from a Plantation Key courtroom after Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Luis Garcia found them guilty on Thursday. The pair waived their right to a jury trial and opted to have their case heard by Garcia.

Their crime occurred on Sept. 11, when commercial fisherman Abilio Gil and his stepson, Yardiel Penton, videotaped Barbuscio and Peralta pulling a lobster trap belonging to commercial fisherman Dana Pettit onto Barbuscio’s boat between Rodriguez Key and Tavernier Creek.

In announcing his ruling, Garcia said the poor-quality video was of little value as evidence, but it did contain Gil’s spoken description of the defendants’ action. Gil was watching through binoculars while Penton operated the camcorder. Garcia said the eyewitness account was credible and weighed heavily in his decision.

Assistant State Attorney Colleen Dunne also provided photos of the trap, buoy and rope, and had the trap brought into the courtroom. She said the photos taken the day of the incident clearly show the rope and trap had been recently handled, as silt and marine growth on the items had been disturbed.

A sentencing hearing is set for June 29.

Lobster Mobster Harry Bethel Jr Found Guilty

Keys — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 17:26:16 +0000

BY ADAM LINHARDT Citizen Staff
alinhardt@keysnews.com

It took a jury four hours Friday to find Harry Bethel Jr. and his two mates guilty of pulling another fisherman’s lobster traps three years ago.

Bethel Jr., 48, and co-defendants Shamus Davis, 32, and Lawrence Pinder, 54, were found guilty of one count of trap molestation, a third-degree felony with a maximum punishment of five years in prison. Each is scheduled to be sentenced before circuit Judge David Audlin on June 28.

Audlin granted Assistant State Attorney Val Winter’s request that fishing licenses for each man be revoked pending sentencing. Each could have their licenses permanently revoked at that time, Winter said. None of the defendants was taken into custody, as Audlin did not find them to be a threat to the community, Winter said. Each initially was charged with two counts of trap molestation. Jurors found them guilty of pulling only one of the two traps the state argued they molested while fishing aboard Bethel Jr.’s crawfish vessel, the Kayla Renee II, near Sugarloaf Key in 2007.

“They found them guilty on the trap that [a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC)] pilot had under constant surveillance,” Winter said. Two FWC officers responded to the Kayla Renee II under the direction of FWC pilot Lt. John Murphy, according to court testimony. Much of the state’s case centered on Murphy’s testimony of what he saw while on patrol about 2,000 to 3,000 feet in the air.

Defense attorney Manny Garcia, who is representing Bethel, and Assistant Public Defender Christopher Bridger, assigned to the other two defendants, hammered away in their closing arguments Friday at what Murphy was able to see from that height. It was the second trial in the case, as prosecutors failed to convince a jury in January that the fishermen had molested any traps. Audlin declared a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a verdict in the first trial.

In an unrelated arson case, Bethel Jr. has not accepted a plea agreement offered by prosecutors. Winter declined to comment on the specifics of the offer until it has been legally accepted or rejected in court and made public. That charge carries a maximum of 35 years in prison and $5,000 in fines if Bethel is found guilty. Prosecutors allege he set fire to a thatched-roof tiki hut at the home of his cousin and business partner, with whom he was arguing, in September 2007.

Bethel is the son of former Key West City Commissioner Harry Bethel Sr. and current Key West Bight Board chairman.

Lobster Mobster Caught Off Grassy Key

Keys — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:07:17 +0000

By KEVIN WADLOW

http://www.keysnet.com

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Fifteen lobster tails were seized as evidence Monday when state wildlife officers arrested a St. Augustine man spearfishing near Grassy Key. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers charged Bruce L. Beall, 39, with 19 misdemeanor counts of conservation violations.

FWC officers checked Beall when they saw him spearfishing in Gulf of Mexico waters north of Grass Key, FWC spokesman Bobby Dube said. It’s illegal to spear lobster, and to separate tails from the lobster body on the water. All the tails were undersized and taken in a closed season, Dube said.

If the lobster had been egg-bearing, “he’d have had the whole set” of possible crawfish violations, Dube noted. The incident was the most serious conservation violation reported from the Memorial Day weekend in the Keys, the officer said.

Lobster season is closed from April 1 to the sport-diving days the last Wednesday and Thursday in July.

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