Hankins draws probation, $100,000 in penalties

From the U.S. attorney's office in Anchorage:

Nov. 15, 2012

Oregon man sentenced for commercial fishing crimes

ANCHORAGE — U.S. Attorney Karen L. Loeffler announced today that an Oregon man was sentenced in federal court in Anchorage for two counts of falsely reporting where he caught 31,000 pounds of halibut that he sold in Kodiak in 2007.

Freddie Joe Hankins, 47, of Cove, Ore., was sentenced on Nov. 8 by U.S. District Court Judge H. Russel Holland to fines totaling $25,000, a community service payment of $75,000, and three years of probation on the condition that all his fishing activities be recorded by an onboard electronic vessel monitoring system.

The sentence also requires Hankins to publish in National Fisherman magazine a statement acknowledging his wrongdoing in this case.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Cooper, the evidence established that Hankins had caught the halibut in an area where it was illegal for him to fish under the individual fishing quota system, and that he falsely stated in his landing reports that he caught the fish in another more distant but legal area.

Arne Fuglvog, former fisheries aide to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who served a prison term for his fisheries conviction, testified at the Hankins trial that he had fished with Hankins, and that Hankins had previously made similar false landing reports claiming he caught his fish in the more distant but legal area when in fact he caught them in the area closer to port where the fishing was better but where it was illegal for him to fish.

Evidence also showed Hankins was convicted in state court in 2007 for falsifying a landing report to conceal the fact that he had exceeded the allowable bycatch of rockfish.

When sentencing Hankins, Holland found that Hankins had knowingly testified falsely at his trial when he denied he falsified the landing reports, and that this testimony amounted to perjury. The judge found further that Hankins was still "in a state of denial" about having committed the crimes for which the jury convicted him.

Loeffler commends the Office of Law Enforcement of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the investigation of this case.

Feds: Oregon man lied about sablefish catch

The F/V Kamilar, seen here in November 2009 at Fishermen's Terminal, Seattle. Deckboss photo

Federal authorities have charged a 46-year-old Oregon man, Freddie Joe Hankins, with misreporting where he caught about 6,000 pounds of sablefish in 2006.

The vessel involved was the longliner Kamilar.

That's the boat named in a similar case brought against Arne Fuglvog, a former aide to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Fuglvog is awaiting sentencing, and is expected to draw prison time.

Here is the criminal complaint against Hankins, and here is a very interesting affidavit by a NOAA Fisheries special agent.