WEST PALM BEACH — Two Jupiter divers who reduce 19 sharks unfastened from a Fort Pierce fisherman’s line and destroyed his gear gained’t spend a day in prison.
John Moore Jr. and Tanner Mansell confronted as much as 5 years in federal prison and as a lot as $250,000 in fines after jurors convicted them of theft in December. U.S. Judge Donald Middlebrooks spared them from each this month, sentencing the boys to 1 yr of probation and about $3,345 in compensation to the fisherman whose sharks they freed.
Moore, 56, and Mansell, 29, had taken six vacationers to swim with sharks after they got here throughout the animals ensnared in Richard Thomas Osburn’s backside longline fishery set on Aug. 10, 2020. Prosecutors mentioned they reduce the sharks from the road, scavenged it for hooks and weights and left the remaining on the dock. Passersby picked it clear, then loaded right into a cart and positioned in a dumpster.
The gear alone value the vessel proprietor about $1,300, mentioned prosecutor Thomas Austin Watts-Fitzgerald. The worth of the freed sharks amounted to a number of thousand extra.
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The divers known as it a shark rescue. Others known as it theft.
Moore and Mansell’s indictment for theft in October ignited fierce debate over whether or not they deserved to be prosecuted. The males insisted they believed the 6-mile-long fishing line was unlawful and deserted, characterizing the ordeal as a shark rescue — not a theft.
It’s why Moore mentioned he paused midway via pulling the road aboard to name state law-enforcement officers and report what he mentioned he believed was an unlawful shark fishing operation. It’s why he shared pictures of the confiscated gear to Instagram and Facebook, decrying the one who left it within the water.
A neighborhood of anglers felt otherwise, eviscerating the boys on-line and demanding they be held accountable. Commercial shark divers like Moore and Mansell, whose livelihoods depend upon sharks within the water, have been pushed by greed, they argued.
Prosecutors mentioned the fishing gear didn’t look deserted. The hooks have been freshly baited and freed from rust, and the road was hooked up to a correctly marked buoy, as is required by federal legislation. The fisherman who forged it was considered one of 5 folks on the earth permitted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to reap sandbar sharks for analysis.
Despite what prosecutors known as the “obvious legality” of the fishing operation, Moore and Mansell advised the passengers aboard their boat that it was a “ghost set” and enlisted the vacationers to assist scoop it aboard.
“I think they knew exactly what they were doing,” mentioned Rob Murphy, a industrial fisherman from Palm Beach Gardens. “Maybe they had some misplaced feelings of altruism, but you can’t do that. I can’t break into the zoo and set the animals free and destroy the cages just because I don’t agree with it.”
Supporters of divers wrote to the decide, urging leniency.
Tourists aboard Moore and Mansell’s boat testified throughout the trial that the boys sincerely believed the road was deserted and unlawful. Jurors deliberated for 3 days, writing to the decide twice that they couldn’t come to an settlement earlier than lastly returning the responsible verdict.
Supporters of Moore and Mansell’s wrote almost 50 pages of letters to the decide asking for leniency. Middlebrooks’ choice Feb. 13 was disappointingly lenient, Murphy mentioned.
As the final federally permitted shark fisherman within the South Atlantic, the Fort Pierce fisherman has already endured his livelihood being regulated “nearly out of existence,” Murphy mentioned.
“The last thing he needs is vigilantes taking matters into their own hands,” he mentioned.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist masking public security and legal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can attain her at [email protected].