Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Two 23-year-old Bay Point men are facing a maximum five years in prison and a $250,000 fine after conspiring to poach more than $150,000 worth of lobster last year.

John Buckheim and Nick Demauro, whose sentencing hearing has not been scheduled, averted a federal jury trial Tuesday by pleading guilty to conspiracy to poach lobsters. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped two charges that could have added at least 10 years to their sentence.

Buckheim and Demauro harvested lobsters by diving on illegal artificial habitats, called casitas, primarily in the Content Keys area north of Big Pine Key, from July 2008 through October 2008, according to court documents.

They paid a man $4,000 to let them use his lobster fishing license and permits as a cover, U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald said as he laid out his case before senior U.S. District Court Judge James Lawrence King.

It is unclear whether that man, who has not been charged, knew what the men were doing. He said he never dove for lobster or set foot on Buckheim's boat, according to agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Buckheim and Demauro sold the lobster to a Stock Island seafood company in 32 separate incidents for a total of $45,974, reports say. That same lobster has a retail value of more than $155,000, the prosecutor old the judge. The company has not been charged in the case.

Prosecutors also accused Buckheim of sinking a boat in about 25 feet of water south of Sammy's Creek Bridge near Hawk Channel on Sugarloaf Key in an effort to create a casita.

Federal agents conducted visual and electronic surveillance of both men and taped a conversation in which they talked of storing preseason lobster tails, reports say. On the tapes, both men appear to acknowledge that they knew what they were doing was illegal, reports say.

The case comes as federal and state agents continue to make high-profile lobster-poaching arrests.

The biggest was that of David and Denise Dreifort of Cudjoe Key. Prosecutors found thousands of lobsters at one of their homes on Lookdown Lane last year, making it one of the biggest lobster poaching busts in Keys history.

David Dreifort was sentenced to 2½ years in prison in July. His wife was sentenced to seven months in prison.

That case also snared Michael Delph, 39, a Key West fishing guide and firefighter, who was sentenced in June to 10 months in prison followed by two years' probation. Delph was the only defendant in the case to plead not guilty.

In September, a father and son were arrested near No Name Key, accused of possessing 310 wrung lobster tails, marking the biggest illegal lobster case in the Keys during the 2009-2010 commercial fishing season. Angel Cancio, 49, and Angel Rogue Cancio, 26, both of Big Pine Key, each face 594 misdemeanor fishing violations.

The Florida Keys Commercial Fishing Association has taken to hiring their own private pilots in an effort to curb what they called rampant trap-robbing this year.

alinhardt@keysnews.com