New Charges Against Montauk Fisherman for Violating Catch Limits

A Montauk commercial fisherman has been charged with new felony fraud and conspiracy charges in relation to a scheme he is accused of concocting with a Montauk fish wholesaler to sell what is now said to be $850,000 worth of fish landed in excess of legal catch limits.

Christopher Winkler, the owner of the Montauk-based dragger F/V New Age, had originally been indicted last spring, along with the owners of wholesale fish distributor Bob Gosman Co., on federal charges related to the illegal landing and sale of fish from 2014 to 2017.

The total value of the fish landed illegally had initially been estimated at $240,000, and the fisherman and dealers were accused of falsifying reams of documents that are supposed to detail when and by whom fish were caught and sold at market.

The owners of Gosman’s pleaded guilty over the summer and agreed to pay $50,000 in fines and implement strict new monitoring protocols for their landings and wholesale operations. They are not named in the new indictment.

A federal grand jury last week issued a “superseding indictment” against Winkler that details a much more extensive effort to hide illegal landings from state and federal regulators and sell the fish through New York City wholesale markets.

The new indictment says that Winkler landed fish illegally on at least 220 separate fishing excursions aboard his 45-foot vessel and sold at least 200,000 pounds of fluke and 20,000 pounds of sea bass in excess of what he was allowed to have kept according to the “trip limits” imposed on fishermen at the time.

The total value of the illegally sold fish of all species was more than three times what was indicated in the original indictments. The illegally landed fluke alone netted Winkler $787,000 just between May 2014 and March 2017.

The charges against the fisherman and dealers were born from a multi-year investigation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of fisheries fraud on Long Island.