Deputies Linked to Lobster Thefts

Four members of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department underwater-rescue unit have been given misdemeanor citations after the deputies were allegedly caught taking under-sized lobsters from commercial fishing nets off La Jolla.

Michael Castleton, a state Fish & Game warden, said Saturday that he watched the four men for more than an hour in the water, then confronted their darkened boat and recovered 13 of the small lobsters.

Court Appearance Is Ordered

The deputies, identified as Russ Moore, Thomas Drake, Charles Wagner and John Pokorny, were ordered to appear in San Diego Municipal Court on the citations, which carry a maximum sentence of $500 and six months in jail for each small lobster seized early Friday morning off Boomer Beach in La Jolla.

None of the deputies, all members of the sheriff’s elite scuba-diving team, could be reached for comment, but Castleton said he has been informed that the sheriff’s internal affairs unit is reviewing the case to determine whether the deputies should be disciplined.

“It’s unfortunate that they’re going to have to appear in court on the misdemeanor charges,” Castleton said. “And it’s unfortunate that they’ll have to appear before internal affairs, also.

“But I observed them diving in an area where there were commercial fishing traps laid, and the deputies’ boat was completely blacked out. It led me to believe it was possibly a poaching operation.”

The warden said he had been watching the divers for about an hour as they bobbed up and down in the dark water near the commercial nets. He said they were using county equipment, including a 14-foot inflatable boat with its lights turned off, and a county trailer and pickup truck.

He said he finally approached the men, and “they became suspicious of me.” They asked whether he was a San Diego police officer, and when Castleton said he was a state warden, they identified themselves as deputies, he said.

But he said that they made no effort to bring their boat all the way to shore and that he had to wade into the water to retrieve the craft. He said that inside the boat, he found 13 lobsters stashed in a mesh net, all of them under the legal size of 3 inches.

In further questioning the deputies, Castleton said, they told him they had not yet measured the lobsters. They also said that they decided to stop diving because one of their crew was seasick.

“I don’t know if he was sick or not,” Castleton added. “I’m not a doctor.”

But he said the Boomer Beach area is a popular place for lobster poachers, many of whom sneak around underwater at night, trying to pick off trapped lobsters in the commercial nets. He noted that just last week he made a case against a poacher who had grabbed 88 lobsters, 77 of them undersize.

He said that most poachers sell the small lobsters, getting roughly $5 apiece from area restaurants.

The deputies’ actions, he added, “fit the type of operations we see when people are robbing traps.”