Posted by Chris on March 15, 2002 at 08:45:41:
I heard last night that a Southern California diver was arrested for selling lobster he caught with a sport permit.
So this morning I first called the local DFG office and spoke with Lt. Joeseph Baima.
He told me that his office knew nothing about it and the DFG Special Operations Unit, which operates out of Sacramento, probably made arrest.
I then called Steve Martarno, chief information officer for DFG in Sacramento and he confirmed that the arrest was made yesterday, and that a article appears in todays LA Times sports section.
The divers arrested were Jon Michael Hand and Edward Gary Wolf for catching more than their legal limits of lobsters and illegally selling them from the parking lot of a local hospital.
The divers had all of the lobster in their possession and Hand's home was raided and all lobster in his freezer and all the dive gear at their residence was seized.
DFG has video footage of the repeated sale of lobsters from the lot of a hospital where Hand has worked for 11 years.
Most of their dives were in Santa Monica Bay, which is off limits to commercial lobster fishermen.
See the LA Times Article for more details.