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 Undersized fish killing raises questions on industry standards
By ARNOLD MARKOWITZ
Waterfront News Fishing Columnist
Trolling for suckers has its rewards: Often you get a bite.
Ah, but it also has risks: Sometimes you get bitten.
That’s why 45-foot Therapy IV, one of two same-named charter fishing yachts based at Haulover Park, is owned now by the U.S. government. It’s also why the ex-owner, Stanley Saffan (“world’s most famous fishing Captain,” his website brags), will go to federal court with his toothbrush on Wednesday morning, May 21.
He could get up 10 years in prison, although that long a sentence isn’t likely. He can keep his other Therapy-IV, a 58-footer, but he has to pay a fine equal to 125 percent of its value — a figure not yet determined. That boat was built in 1976, the other in ’68.
Between March 2003 and May 2005 — the time period covered by the charges against Saffan and four employees — it’s alleged they killed 80 undersized sailfish. All their illegal captures numbered 400.
Because Saffan was willing to plead guilty to one charge of landing and harvesting undersized sailfish, the government dropped a slew of other charges — conspiracy, fraud, obstructing justice. Those were related to a scheme to cheat charter customers by trapping them into expensive contracts to have their fish mounted by a local taxidermy company.
An industry representative defended the taxidermist’s practice of paying commissions to captains who solicit business for the company, but that isn’t the issue, is it? No, the issue is deception and the taxidermist’s will to hold sales agents to reasonable standards of honesty.
A remark made in court by federal prosecutor Thomas Watts-FitzGerald was reported in daily newspapers and has received lots of attention in charter fishing circles: “The industry is permeated with the view that tourists are targets and chumps. The Therapy is not the only one doing it.”
Pretty harsh stuff there. The statement raises questions: How widespread is that attitude? How many other charter crews are known to operate that way? Are more prosecutions in the works? The prosecutor said he isn’t allowed to elaborate out of court about things he said in court.
What about the taxidermist?
In the Therapy-IV case, the company’s business records were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury — and revealed evidence that the taxidermist paid the Therapy-IV crew commissions ranging from $214 to $1,860 for getting customers to sign up for mounts.
That’s not take-it-or-leave-it money. If someone offers you a 50 percent commission for a thousand-dollar sale (about the average price of a sailfish trophy), you’ll try very hard to close that deal.
Would you cross ethical lines? Legal lines? It’s easy to say no, as long as nobody’s tempting you.
Paying a commission isn’t against the law, but did the taxidermist know something fishy was going on? In 2001, Gray Taxidermy had to pay a $30,000 fine for the deceptive practices of charter crews who acted as the company’s sub-agents. Gray also had to re-word its contracts to make customers aware that it doesn’t need any part of a captured fish to make a trophy mount — just the measurements, because they’re all replicas.
The notion that the charter fishing business is “permeated” by an attitude that tourists are chumps and targets implies that almost everybody’s doing it.
“Every little charter fleet has a group conducting business that way,” said Lt. Dave Bingham, an investigator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
He doesn’t think nearly every operator is swindling customers and routinely killing undersized fish. I don’t either. Then again, the crews I meet are so successful that they’re above dishonest temptation.
Still, the federal prosecutor has a point. After all, aren’t we all suckers sometimes? We ask hotel concierges to recommend restaurants, shows, nightclubs, whatever. We believe them unless they let us down.
Concierges are important contacts to charter operators who count on walk-up business. It’s a legitimate business relationship although, like any other, it can be corrupted.
Experienced travelers expect concierges to speak well of service providers who are nice to them. Bingham told me charter captains are nice to concierges, inviting them to parties, sending holiday greeting cards.
If a concierge steers us to brazen tourist traps, she’s as much a chump as we are. We’re liable to complain to hotel management, warn other guests, post our squawks on online forums, even tell the Better Business Bureau and the police. There’s a limit to how long anyone in the referral business can get away with shark practices.
The limit’s probably longer in cases like that of Therapy-IV. Why? Because the victims are likely to be first-time offshore anglers, even outright beginners at fishing. Maybe as kids they sat on a dock, holding a cane pole, drowning worms. They have fond memories of fish fries — bluegills, weren’t they? Haven’t fished much since then, you know?
Let’s say you and I are in town — Miami, Fort Lauderdale, wherever — for business meetings. Our hotel is near a marina where charter yachts are docked. We’ve never been deep sea fishing and gee, that looks like fun.
We ask Pollyanna, the hotel concierge, to recommend a boat. She sends us to Capt. Shifty, who’s always nice to her — invites her to parties, never forgets her during the holidays.
She doesn’t know he’s a candidate for Public Enemy Number One. Who do we think she is, Sherlock Holmes? (Imagine her cautious examination of that salty fellow: You’re not a crook, are you? No, I am not a crook. Are you sure?)
Shifty and his crew aren’t wearing eye patches and peg legs today, so how are we to know? They take us over the bounding main, where we catch a couple of sailfish after learning not to turn the reel handles backward. What fun! There are high fives, cheers and beers.
Boy, are we proud. Capt. Shifty is, too.
“Shiver me timbers!” he cries. “I never saw sailfish this big! Your friends will faint when they see these on your walls! Here’s a taxidermy contract! Here’s a pen! Hooray for you!”
We sign. Our fish die on ice. Too bad, says the mate, but the taxidermist needs their bills and fins to make our trophies. He lies well.
We have no idea that our enormous fish, measuring less than 63 inches from jaw to fork of tail, are legally undersized. It’s against the law to keep them. We don’t know the law requires all billfish captures to be reported to the National Marine Fisheries Service, or that Capt. Shifty — the renowned billfish catcher — hasn’t reported any in many a month.
On the way back to the docks, we have second thoughts about having those fish mounted. We don’t want them after all. “You should have told us that before we brought the fish onto the boat and killed it,” our new pals say. “Before you signed the contracts.”
In the Therapy-IV case, Capt. Stan Saffan and his once-merry men — captains Lang and Schick, mates Adam Augusto and Ralph Pegram — each pleaded guilty to single charges. The government agreed to drop the others.
Miami lawyer Richard Sharpstein, who will represent Saffan at sentencing said, "Hard nosed business practices do not a crime make. It is absurd to put a man like this in jail. He has made hundreds of people happy by catching fish…a sport the last time I looked. The mounts are trophies people proudly display. No one ever got one they didn't want at the time. Sure, when the feds call and tell people they were ripped off, they are suddenly victims. Last time I looked, there was still real crime here in South Florida."
Augusto’s sentencing is set for Wednesday, May 21, at 10 a.m. and Saffan’s at 10:30 in federal court at 299 E. Broward Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. Lang is to be sentenced two days later at 10 a.m.
Ralph Pegram already was sentenced to a year in prison. Schick got three years’ probation and was fined $3,000. Such plea agreements are a simple way to dispose of complex cases without time and money-consuming trials, though it’s not always satisfying.
Only the illegally killed fish get direct revenge. The chumps, those gullible tourists, have to take their solace from the self-soiled reputations of those who preyed upon them.
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