Williams will protect lawful fishing industry
Steve Urbon's article, "New Bedford balks at NOAA agent's pending arrival" (Jan. 1) is fraught with inaccuracies, written as opinion-as-news formerly limited to the Gloucester Daily Times, and illustrates the simple-minded rhetoric of New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang.
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Susan Williams, a former deputy United States marshal, military police officer and the child of a distinguished agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, was hired by NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement based upon her professional qualifications and personal attributes. Agent Williams is a firm yet compassionate law enforcement professional and an expert in the enforcement of federal fisheries regulations.
For the last six years, Williams has been assigned as the supervisor in northern New England. Her transfer to New Bedford is based on personal preference and organizational needs, not, as Lang wishfully proclaims, "retaliatory."
Williams earned a reputation for conducting and supervising sensitive and complex investigations of fisheries violations. Although never stationed in Gloucester, as Urbon reports, she supervised the much-publicized investigation of violations committed by the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction and other high-profile cases. In fact, she will appear in U.S. District Court this week in the trial of an alleged smuggler for crimes so serious that he has been held by order of a federal judge, without bail, for the past seven months.
Read the complete letter from The Standard Times.