NOAA's top cop ousted

His professional reputation in tatters, the nation's longtime chief police officer for the oceans was replaced yesterday.

After 11 years as director of law enforcement for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dale J. Jones' federal policing career came to an apparent end, according to multiple congressional sources, after an Inspector General's report on a document shredding episode was filed in recent days with Jones' superiors.

Eric Schwaab, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service, released a statement announcing that a career NOAA official, Alan Risenhoover, had been appointed interim director of law enforcement, pending the selection of a permanent successor to Jones.

In avoiding the mention of Jones' name or any explanation of his status, Schwaab cited "advice of departmental counsel" and ... Privacy Act requirements." Questions aimed at clarifying whether Jones was fired, suspended or allowed to resign went unanswered.

Reaction to Jones' exit from the director's office in Silver Spring, Md., was more illuminating, pointed and, in some cases, dissatisfied.

U.S. Sen. John Kerry, who had joined congressional colleagues to urge NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco to get rid of Jones, issued a statement connecting the document shredding report with Jones' removal and added that fishermen could hardly be asked to respect ocean policing so long as the chief was "destroying documents."

Congressmen John Tierney, a Salem Democrat and Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican who represents the Outer Banks, both called for an accounting of the harm caused by Dale Jones' activities, and publication of all parts of the Inspector General's report.

Both urged that all pending prosecutions be delayed until Dale Jones' misdeeds are understood. Congressman Jones wrote to Lubchenco that cases might be "tainted" by improper behavior.

Owed an 'explanation'

"You don't make the agency accountable by disguising what he did," the Carolina congressman said in a telephone interview. "He owes us an explanation."

A secretary at the Department of Law Enforcement said Dale Jones was not in his office, and he did not return calls.

The uncovering of a police administration that was found to demonize fishermen and press excessive fines on small-boat businesses that had gone deep in debt to remain viable began with a grassroots appeal for oversight from Gloucester by allies of the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, which had been fighting off law enforcement allegations for a decade.

State Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, D-Gloucester, a lawyer who had represented the auction business, mobilized the leadership of the Massachusetts Legislature to appeal to Congress for an investigation into "vindictive" actions against the auction, the linchpin of Gloucester's port economy and the No. 1 platform for the sale of fish from the Gulf of Maine.

"Today, we saw the start of the application of checks and balances being applied," said Ferrante. "Hopefully, this is the beginning of real reform that respects the rights of fishermen to be treated fairly and justly."

"Nowhere was the abuse of the office more evident than here in Gloucester," added Mayor Carolyn Kirk.

"While this is not a cause for celebration," said Congressman Barney Frank, whose district includes New Bedford, "it is clearly an improvement."

Complaining about "cryptic communications," state Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, saw the chapter as a sign of how hard it was to change a corrupt culture.

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican who advised Lubchenco at her Senate confirmation hearing that NOAA's relationship with the fishing industry had become dangerously dysfunctional, called the day's developments a vindication for the fleet.

'Step in right direction'

"Today's announcement by NOAA that it will pursue a replacement to lead the agency's law enforcement branch is a vindication to the thousands of Northeast fishermen who bore the brunt of the egregious mismanagement recently discovered within all levels of NOAA's law enforcement community," Snowe said in a prepared statement. "Although it is regrettable that NOAA is only now taking action to remove the current director from his post, it is certainly a step in the right direction."

Schwaab's statement implied that the Inspector General's investigation was initiated by Lubchenco. But she did not ask for the probe until petitioned by a congressional coalition headed by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Kerry last June.

Pressure especially built against Dale Jones on consecutive days in March. From two House subcommittee oversight hearings into the six-month, three-coast investigation into the ocean police officers' law enforcement activities and actions came revelations that Jones paid for his own foreign travel from an $8.4 million asset forfeiture fund, and authorized a mass public document shredding in October while inspectors for IG Todd Zinser were at work.

This probe by Zinser produced calls for Jones' dismissal or suspension, but Lubchenco said she would wait, at Zinser's recommendation, until the document shredding report was complete.

Zinser's investigation found more law enforcement problems in Gloucester than any other region, finding the penalties charged by the NMFS agents and lawyers in Gloucester were 250 percent or more higher than other regions across the country.

But after ending their investigations in New England, agents found similar excesses up and down the coast traced to agents stationed in Gloucester.

One case cited in the IG's report (but discussed without naming the victims) involved the effort of Gloucester agent-in-charge Andrew Cohen and Charles Juliand, head of the office of general counsel in Gloucester, to force out of business a family fishing company in Cape May, N.J., with fines and shutdown penalties.

Cohen's penalty claims

On Jan. 19, two days before the IG issued his report, Cohen sent a letter to the New England Fishery Management Council announcing how aggressively his office had cracked down on herring boats, noting the generation of cases against 11 boats for late reporting of nearly 10 million pounds of herring, violations that had been valued at fines of $1.1 million.

Among the prize cases he cited was the one against the Axelsson family of Cape May, N.J.

But while Cohen reported seeking fines of $270,000 and shutdown orders for eight and four months against the two family boats, the cases had been tried months earlier and the administrative judge had knocked down the fines and effectively dropped the suspension of the permits after determining that the violations were purely technical and could not have profited the Axelssons at all.

The Axelssons' have appealed their reduced penalties.

"If a system has been exposed as being questionable — if not corrupt — you have to ask whether adjudications made under that system were fair," said Gloucester attorney Stephen Ouellette, who represents the Axelssons and many fishing businesses along the Atlantic Coast.

In organizing a series of steps to rebuild NOAA's law enforcement office, Lois Schiffer, newly hired by Lubchenco as chief counsel for NOAA, wrote to her boss of her decision not to look backward to determine if miscarriages of justice could be rectified.

"It is not unusual for an agency to say 'were not going to look backward,' but aggrieved U.S. citizens will certainly find it disappointing if their government does not act to remedy harms they've caused," Ouellette said.

Tarr wants transparency

"When state legislators initially sought an investigation of NOAA law enforcement practices, we were hoping to end a reign of terror in which fishermen were viewed as criminals and subjected to aggressive tactics shrouded in bureaucratic mystery," said Sen. Tarr. "Today's actions by Secretary Lubchenco prove just how difficult it is to change this culture.

"Thankfully, an individual responsible for the improprieties that have occurred has apparently been removed," he continued. "Unfortunately, the cryptic communications on this subject by the agency lack the clarity to explain exactly what's happening and to provide the transparency this situation deserves in order to rebuild public confidence.

"Today's action in removing Dale Jones is important," Tarr said, "but moving past bureaucratic language to a point of transparency to deal directly with problems is equally or more important."

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

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