The Bob Gosman Inc. seafood wholesaler and a Montauk commercial fisherman were indicted on federal charges of wire and mail fraud and obstruction of justice on Wednesday, April 21, for a two-year scheme that prosecutors say was designed to conceal violations of fisheries limits.
Charged in the scheme were Gosman’s operators, Bryan and Asa Gosman, and commercial fisherman Christopher Winkler.
The federal Department of Justice said in a press release on April 21 that Mr. Winkler, 61, and the wholesaler had coordinated from 2014 to 2016 to conceal the catch and sale of 74,000 pounds of fluke and black sea bass above the quotas allowed to be harvested.
The DOJ said the illegally caught fish was valued at $250,000.
The fish were caught by Mr. Winkler aboard his Montauk-based trawler “New Age” and sold to Bob Gosman Inc. and a now defunct wholesaler in the Bronx that was owned by the Gosmans.
Federal law requires both commercial fishermen and the wholesaler to file official reports of the fish landed and submit them to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
The indictment handed up last week accuses Mr. Winkler and the Gosmans of falsifying those documents to cover up the fact that Mr. Winkler had landed and sold more fish on some 70 voyages than he was allowed. Falsifying the documents and then submitting them to NOAA constitutes wire and mail fraud, the grand jury found. The Gosmans then also withheld documents and records sought by the federal grand jury, resulting in the obstruction of justice charge.
The scheme was revealed by a multi-year federal investigation into fishing fraud around Long Island called Operation One-Way Chandelier, the DOJ said. The charges leveled could be punishable by fines or possible jail time.
Staff Writer on Apr 21, 2021