Lobster poacher arrested with 6000
Some people just don't care.....
BY CASEY WOODS
cwoods@MiamiHerald.com
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U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
This is part of the catch that was confiscated from a Keys man who was arrested for illegally harvesting 1,500 pounds of the spiny tail lobster.
He planted a wide network of makeshift lobster habitats composed of concrete and scrap metal. He cruised through a national marine sanctuary in his Wahoo fishing boat, plucking thousands of lobsters from the protected waters, possibly causing long-term environmental harm.
He kept 1,500 pounds of meaty lobster tails in a home freezer, preparing to sell them for illicit profit.
That's the portrait federal prosecutors painted of David Dreifort, 41, accused of being one of the most prolific lobster poachers in the nation.
Dreifort, of Cudjoe Key, is charged with placing artificial lobster habitats in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, stockpiling the rough equivalent of 6,000 lobster tails in advance of last Wednesday's opening of the state's commercial lobster season. That's about 1,000 times the legal limit, U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta said.
Dreifort's alleged actions could have ''serious long-run consequences,'' Acosta said at a news conference Thursday in his downtown Miami offices.
''Because much of the harvest took place before the start of the season, it's possible it affected the reproductive cycle of the lobsters in the area,'' Acosta said. ``Dropping a bunch of concrete structures into these protected waters can cause a lot of damage.''
Dreifort's bond was set at more than $1 million, and he was released on Thursday. He could face up to five years in prison and the forfeiture of his poaching property, including a boat, a vehicle and a trailer. That property has already been seized pending the outcome of the case.
''My client is maintaining his innocence, and we are going to aggressively defend this case,'' said his attorney, Manny Garcia of Key West.
Officials involved in the bust would not speak specifically of the fate of Dreifort's stockpile, though they did say that in cases like these, they generally sell perishable items and keep the proceeds in an escrow bank account pending the outcome of the case.
The investigation -- dubbed ''Operation Freezer Burn'' -- was a joint probe of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
An alleged associate of Dreifort, a man named in the arrest affidavit as Robert Hammer, told an undercover NOAA agent that Dreifort was the 'largest lobster poacher in the Keys and that he had `thousands' of lobster habitats -- called 'casitas,' or 'little houses' -- that he had placed in the water over the last 20 years,'' according to the criminal complaint. Hammer said that Dreifort had made ''millions of dollars'' poaching lobster, the complaint shows.
Dreifort was charged with violations of the Lacey Act, which makes it unlawful to transport, sell or purchase any fish or wildlife taken or sold in violation of state regulations. He also is accused of violating sanctuary regulations and the Florida administrative code, which prohibit the harvest of spiny lobster from an artificial habitat.
``Casitas have been an ongoing problem in the Keys,`` said Cmdr. David Score, superintendent of the sanctuary. ``We've been removing them for a number of years, and we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of the public's tax money to clean up this garbage that's in the ocean.''
Authorities began investigating Dreifort after they learned of a group in the Keys that was manufacturing the artificial habitats, the complaint said. They followed him as he cruised the sanctuary, recording the Global Positioning System coordinates of the places stopped, Acosta said. Investigators returned to those sites the next day and documented the ''casitas.'' Many of them had recently wrung lobster heads nearby.
In 1985, authorities charged Dreifort with grand theft; a judge withheld adjudication, sparing Dreifort a felony conviction. A year later, investigators charged him with tampering with fishing lines and traps. Again, a judge withheld adjudication.
Dreifort also has more than a dozen minor boating violations in Monroe County, including speeding and violation of safety equipment regulations, going back more than a decade.
