By Richard Gaines
Staff Writer
—
The federal government's decision to replace the embattled Andrew Cohen as special agent in charge of ocean and fisheries law enforcement for the Northeast became official Thursday.
Starting Monday, Cohen who is at the center of an intensifying investigation of a U.S. Inspector General into abuse of police authority exercised against the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, will leave Gloucester for a new assignment, reporting directly to the acting director of law enforcement for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, Md.
The change, first reported in Thursday's Times, was said to be agreeable to Cohen and NOAA — which has already put Cohen's former boss, Dale J. Jones, the longtime chief of law enforcement, on paid administrative leave in the still unfolding scandal in federal fisheries law enforcement.
"Andy and I agree a change in leadership in the Northeast is needed at this time," said Alan Risenhoover, who was appointed acting director of law enforcement in the early spring as part of the decision to take Jones out of the line of authority.
"(Starting Monday), he will report directly to me," Risenhoover's statement said, "and will be reassigned to a non-supervisory headquarters position. He will no longer be directly involved with any future enforcement actions in the Northeast."
No other information was released. But an unofficial source said that an agent in Gloucester, Tim Donovan, would be appointed to replace Cohen at least temporarily. Efforts to confirm that report from Risenhoover's office were unsuccessful.
An internal memo from Risenhoover that was leaked to the Times confirmed the Donovan appointment.
Risenhoover's office also did not respond to a request for Cohen's salary as agent in charge, which has been expanded with a series of internal awards and commendations.
There was also no response to a query about the propriety of Cohen using his government issued cell phone to field calls from prospective buyers of merchandise he has been selling on e-Bay and other online sites since the days before Jones promoted him to agent in charge in 2004.
Cohen, in turn, referred questions to headquarters Thursday.
His shift to headquarters was announced as U.S. Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser was reportedly completing an investigation into the tactics and motives behind NOAA enforcement's 10-year campaign — which failed — to prove the auction was the center of illicit fish transactions.
In the report from a six-month investigation launched in response to a request by NOAA chief administrator Jane Lubchenco and demands for an independent probe by the Massachusetts congressional investigation into the enforcement tactics of NOAA agents and lawyers, IG's office investigators found the problems centered in the Northeast and thus on the Gloucester enforcement office, where Cohen presided over a team of about a half dozen agents.
Zinser found that national enforcement chief Jones had given his agents free reign to treat fishermen as criminals when their violations were typically technical violations of byzantine rules and regulations.
Three cases against the auction produced a legal stalemate that was settled favorably for the business last March — just as a congressional subcommittee was prepared to take sworn testimony from Zinser that Jones and his agents had also used NOAA enforcement's Asset Forfeiture Fund of fines for overseas travel and purchases unrelated to cases.
Jones, however, has been kept on the payroll — which, for him, amounts to $158,000 a year. His status was a secret until Reps. John Tierney and Barney Frank last month extracted the admission from Lubchenco regarding his status.
Jones promoted Cohen from the ranks to head the Northeast Division in 2004. Since then, Cohen and the agents working for him — in collaboration with the Office of the General Counsel for Enforcement and Litigation — have aggressively cited fishing boats and businesses for alleged violations of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and attempted to compel their targets to pay fines of up to 500 percent, more than those levied in other regions.
Mayor Carolyn Kirk, who has been a leading critic of the ethos of NOAA law enforcement, said the decision to move Cohen to headquarters was no victory for the community unless the agency changed its way of thinking and acting.
"As important as the change in people," she said, "is the change in policy. I'm interested in how the new person will handle the policy questions."
Kirk helped push Cohen out with her assertion in the spring that the community ought to "boycott" a planned peace conference scheduled at NOAA's regional offices if Cohen and Charles Juliand, the region's chief litigating attorney, were part of it.
After NOAA canceled the event, Risenhoover led a delegation to Gloucester to meet with Kirk and the city's state delegation of Sen. Bruce Tarr and Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante.
Agents for Zinser were in Gloucester for long periods this summer, further pressing their investigation into the case surrounding the auction. The IG had promised earlier this year to produce separate reports on the most egregious cases of enforcement excess, but specifically named only the auction saga.
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.
