GLOUCESTER, Mass.– Sept. 7, 2011 — The Ciulla family, which started the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction 11 years ago, and got a Cabinet-level apology in May for a decade of government law enforcement harassment, said today they have sold the business. President and CEO Larry Ciulla said the family sold for an undisclosed amount to Kristian Kristensen, the president of Zeus Packing Co., a fish processor that has been a tenant at the Ciullas' facility on Harbor Loop.
The transaction was completed on Friday, and will not interrupt the normal business activities at the auction house, Ciulla said. The auction is the linchpin of the Gloucester waterfront economy and the leading platform for the brokering of seafood taken from the Gulf of Maine.
"We went as far as we could as long as we could," said Ciulla in a telephone interview this morning. "We wanted to make sure the auction remains in the community.
The Ciullas and their business were the flashpoint for a decade of law enforcement excesses against the fishing industry, and it was only when the Ciullas went public in February 2009 after being hit with a 59-count allegation that events were set in motion that came to reveal how ugly the NOAA law enforcement system had become.
This past May, as the revelations reached a climax, the Ciullas and eight other businesses received a public apology by then Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco and reparations for fines unfairly collected from justice miscarried.
A special judicial master, employed by Locke, concluded that the decade of investigations had found no sign of a black market fish market or any other significant violations of federal law or regulations.
Read the complete story by Richard Gaines in the Gloucester Daily Times