The director of federal fishery law enforcement faced a barrage of questions yesterday about a variety of problems and agency failings — including excessively harsh treatment of the industry in the region policed out of Gloucester, and "forgotten" foreign travel charged to a $8.5 million account built on fines paid by penalized fishermen.
The so-called Asset Forfeiture Fund was a major focus of the report by U.S. Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser.
Deposits to it came from fines that fishermen paid to settle cases. Yet, despite the size of the account, it was used freely by agents for "travel and purchases" until last October, according to yesterday's sworn testimony by Dale J. Jones, the law enforcement director and witness on the hot seat in Gloucester's City Hall.
Jones had "custody of it for years," U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said in opening a line of questioning of the director. The exchange came as part of a three-hour hearing before Chairman Kucinich and local Congressman John Tierney, D-Salem, of the U.S. House Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Jones told the panel he did not recall using the fund for "overseas travel" of his own. But Zinser was asked what his investigation, which includes a forensic audit of the fund that is still going on, shows about use of the fund by "Mr. Jones for overseas travel."
"Preliminary research does show international travel," Zinser said.
In August 2008, Jones led a U.S. delegation of about one dozen agents — including Andrew Cohen, agent in charge of the Gloucester office — along with NOAA and Coast Guard officials to a five-day Second Global Fisheries Enforcement Training Workshop in Trondheim, Norway.
According to the written report on the meeting, Jones was an active participant.
"Mr. Jones discussed plans for the future including the Third Global Fisheries Enforcement Training Workshop to be held in Mozambique in 2010," the report said.
Jones could not be reached later yesterday. It could not be determined if the Asset Forfeiture Fund was used to finance the Norway trip.
In his report, Zinser said, "we could not readily determine how NOAA has utilized these funds because ... internal controls over the fund are not tested as part of the department's annual financial statement audit ... overall financial statements."
After receiving the IG's report, Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Jones' boss, shifted control of the fund from Jones to newly appointed chief counsel Lois Schiffer.
At yesterday's hearing, Lubchenco said the problems in law enforcement preceded her but "I own them, and I intend to fix them."
After a decade in charge of fisheries law enforcement, Jones, a former Maryland city police chief, had few satisfactory answers to the questions by members of a U.S. House subcommittee holding an extraordinary field hearing here that expanded on Zinser's withering, 28-page report in January.
Kucinich took turns questioning Jones and Lubchenco with Tierney and with Congressman Barney Frank, the Newton representative whose district includes New Bedford.
Tierney is the subcommittee member who lobbied for the hearing in Gloucester; Frank was added to the panel for the day as a courtesy.
Another House panel takes up similar material in the nation's capital today. Lubchenco and Zinser are scheduled to appear before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife; however, Jones is not scheduled.
That hearing, chaired by Delegate Madeleine Z. Bordallo, D-Guam, will be Webcast live from the Capitol at 2 p.m. on the House Natural Resources Committee Web site.
Both panels were spurred by the findings of the Commerce Department Inspector General's six-month investigation into longstanding and persistent claims of heavy-handed, often excessive and at times vindictive behavior at the hands of federal fishery enforcement agents.
Tierney recalled a 2006 meeting with Jones, William Hogarth, a former NOAA administrator, and Gloucester fishing representatives to complain about "derogatory language" used against the industry figures and noxious tactics. The meeting occurred weeks before an after-hours forced entry at the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction that was reported to Gloucester police, and a raid by armed officers.
The actions were part of a three-year effort to build a case against the business. In February 2009, the office of general counsel, which is independent of Jones, filed a massive 59-count Notice of Violation and Assessment of a 120 day closing plus a $335,200 fine. The auction and the government signed a settlement agreement yesterday that obviated the trial. (See related story on Page 1.)
The IG's work was sparked by complaints of a vendetta against the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, the leading platform for fish from the Gulf of Maine. Auction owners and employees were in the audience of the post-Civil War auditorium, which was hosting its first formal congressional hearing, according to former Mayor John Bell.
Industry figures from New Bedford, Point Judith, R.I., Maine and New York City had come to Gloucester for the day — which began with a 90-minute free exchange with Lubchenco in a downtown meeting room over the broader suite of problems in the relationship between the industry and the government. (See related story on Page 1.)
Jones told the Kucinich panel he stocked his agency with criminal investigators despite mostly administrative law cases because they have the "widest and deepest skill set." He denied suggestions that the mismatch caused of what Frank called "indisputable evidence of excessive, unnecessary enforcement."
Frank said his reading of Zinser's report was clear in finding Jones' force of agents developed an "attitude that looks at fishing violations as if they are crimes."
Jones was reminded that, in the days before Zinser's report was released, he came to Gloucester in an entourage of high NOAA officials, including Andrew Winer, the new director of external affairs who had led the Obama presidential campaign in Hawaii, to buck up the morale of the agents and after returning to his Silver Spring, Md., office wrote a memo to the troops telling them they "had nothing to worry about" from the Inspector General's probe.
In retrospect, he said yesterday, "No doubt, we could have made mistakes."
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.
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