Congressmen call for ouster of NOAA's top cop

Pressure built yesterday for the resignation of Dale J. Jones, the embattled director of federal fisheries law enforcement whose decade long tenure at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been found to be scarred by excessive and abusive prosecutions by agents allowed to operate autonomously.

The epicenter of abuse is the officers based in Gloucester from which the fishing industry of New England and the Mid-Atlantic states is policed and often demeaned, according to a 28-page report on a six month national investigation by a U.S. inspector general.

Sen. John Kerry and Congressmen Barney Frank, John Tierney and William Delahunt — all Massachusetts Democrats — issued the joint call for Jones to step down one day after a House oversight committee revealed that the investigators in the office of the U.S. Commerce Department Inspector General had evidence Jones authorized the shredding of approximately 140 files in November.

At the time Jones approved the shredding, his agents and litigators here were fighting a losing battle against a judge's discovery order for the release of internal documents relating to an ill-fated, high profile effort to prosecute and close the region's leading fish brokerage house, the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction.

In October, as agents and lawyers were fighting the discovery order, the office was advised by e-mail to stop using e-mails. "The concern is that our e-mails are now open to requests for discovery," the advisory explained.

Jones visited the Gloucester office days before the IG's scathing report was released to calm their nerves and buck up their morale, he explained to a House subcommittee Tuesday, and later advised his people by memo they had "nothing to fear."

The IG found that the Gloucester office had been issuing fines 250 percent higher than the next region and more than 500 percent more than the national average. The IG also criticized the self-delusion of officers that they were crimebusters rather than administrative law enforcers, and said it was obvious why fishermen considered themselves demonized and treated as criminals.

The case against the auction, brought in February 2009, sparked outrage that rippled from the harbor to the state legislature to Congress, which petitioned NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco to seek an independent investigation of the methods and attitudes of Jones' agents in enforcing the highly bureaucratized federal fisheries rules and regulations.

On Tuesday, NOAA and the auction settled their decade of three intertwined cases with the auction admitting to no violations and no liability though it did agree to pay $85,000 over three year and close for 35 days of its own choosing over three years.

The original 59 count allegation sought a $335,200 in fines and a 120-day closing for violations derived from self-reported transaction notices.

Up and down the coast for years, fishermen and shoreside businesses and their political representatives had conveyed stories of technical violations that led to fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, weakening and trimming down the hard-pressed fishing industry.

Through a spokeswoman, Lubchenco, President Obama's choice to head NOAA, said no action on Jones would be taken until the completion of the investigation by Inspector General Todd Zinser. On Wednesday, referring to the growing body of material about Jones, Lubchenco told a House subcommittee, "It doesn't look good."

The Wednesday subcommittee was chaired by Madeline Z. Bordallo, D-Guam, who revealed the document destruction that the IG had discovered.

A fierce critic of Dale J. Jones' administration at NOAA was U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-NC, who proclaimed to a massing of at least 5,000 fishing people at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 24 that "we've got a report from the IG that will bust their butts." He petitioned Bordallo for the hearing of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Insular Affairs Oceans and Wildlife.

A different subcommittee, chaired by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, meeting in Gloucester on Tuesday, produced testimony that Jones had used proceeds from an Asset Forfeiture Fund for foreign travel.

Tierney, D-Salem, had urged Kucinich to bring the investigative panel to Gloucester for what is believed to be the first Congressional hearing in the city, the nation's first fishing port, and the wellspring of protest against the enforcement tactics by NOAA.

Uncontrolled use of the forfeiture fund, which held $8.5 million at the end of last year, was halted by memo in October while Zisner's teams were investigating the conduct of the Office of Law Enforcement under Jones, who was promoted to head the national force of 225 agents from the police chief's chair in Hagerstown, Md., in 1999.

He in turn surrounded himself with colleagues from Maryland police departments. He told a House subcommittee on Tuesday that they were the best candidates he could find, despite their having virtually no fisheries experience.

In 2008, Jones led a large delegation of his agents, NOAA and Coast Guard officials to a five-day mid-summer convention on international fishing law enforcement in Trondheim, Norway, and proclaimed his excitement about the 2010 convention in Mozambique.

In a letter to Jones, Kucinich and Tierney demanded documents and answers to a series of questions about his testimony and the testimony of IG Zinser by March 18. The letter reminded Jones that destroying documents could constitute "obstructure of justice."

Kucinich and Tierney also demanded documents and hiring histories for the subordinate level of top officials Jones hired from Maryland police forces.

"Massachusetts fishermen see their economic well-being in large measure decided by NOAA's rules and they won't swallow them if an official is destroying documents," said Kerry. "Transparency and accountability matter. Mr. Jones should step down for the good of NOAA's reputation and its credibility with the working people its rules affect."

"After reviewing the Inspector General's report I was already convinced that the question of Mr. Jones' tenure needed to be thoroughly discussed," said Congressman Barney Frank. "This later revelation now makes it clear that he should leave. Fair fishing law enforcement is essential and people in the fishing industry cannot be expected to have confidence in the law enforcement process supervised by someone who has behaved in this way."

"I have repeatedly questioned Mr. Jones' leadership capabilities and have yet to hear a sufficient reason why he should not resign," said Tierney. "In view of the evidence of longstanding, uncorrected deficiencies at the Office of Law Enforcement, together with yesterday's revelations about the shredding of documents, Dr. Lubchenco should remove Mr. Jones from authority — at the very least, pending the final IG report. We need a whole reorganization from Mr. Jones down. Our fishing families do not deserve to be treated like common criminals as they have been on Mr. Jones' watch."

"Shredding documents is conduct that simply cannot be tolerated," said Delahunt. "It is important that the enforcement actions maintain the highest standards and command the respect of our fishermen."

Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.

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