October 3, 2017 — Sometime early next month, Carlos Rafael is expected to report to a federal prison to begin serving a 46-month sentence for criminal conspiracy and tax evasion.
Rafael, the 65-year-old New Bedford-based fishing magnate, admitted to a judge earlier this year that he had lied to federal fishing regulators about the nature and size of his groundfish landings and bulk smuggling.
At sentencing last week, U.S. District Judge William G. Young rejected the argument from the man who liked to call himself “The Codfather” that the fraud was necessary to protect the jobs of his workers.
“This was stupid,” Young told Rafael. “This was a corrupt course of action from start to finish. It’s a course of action of extensive corruption designed to benefit you, to line your pockets. That’s what it is and that’s why the court has sentenced you as it has.”
Good for Young for handing down a stiff sentence (Rafael was seeking probation). The Codfather’s story, however, does not end here. His arrest and prosecution laid bare a broken regulatory and monitoring system.