The director of federal fishery law enforcement faced a barrage of questions today about 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, who were joined by Congressman Barney Frank, D-Newton.