September 27, 2017 — BOSTON –Judge William Young decided half of Carlos Rafael’s fate on Monday: The New Bedford fishing mogul was sentenced to 46-months in prison with three years supervised release and a $200,000 fine.
The other half, which Young continues to take under advisement, involves the 65-year-old’s 13 groundfish vessels and permits.
In court Monday, Young repeatedly questioned the constitutionality of the forfeiture, citing the excessive fines clause in the Eighth Amendment.
Young said courts with higher authority have heard and decided that fines exceeding four-times the maximum guideline are unconstitutional.
Regardless of how many permits Young orders to be forfeited, he made it clear he has no authority to decide what’s done with them.
NOAA’s guidelines call for the permits to be redistributed throughout the Northeast, which is why for months organizations and politicians have publicly called for redistribution or a deal that would remove Rafael from the industry. Many arguments focused on all 13, without consideration of a partial forfeiture.
Argument against redistribution
Allyson Jordan actually contributed to a portion of Rafael’s groundfish permits.
She sold two boats and four groundfish permits. Jordan said Maine’s fishermen had no interest in the permits until Rafael entered the picture.
“He bought permits and boats to make his business survive,” Jordan said. “I don’t believe they should be given back to the state of Maine. The state of Maine did nothing to help my industry, not to mention my business.”
“Everyone is coming out of the woodworks now,” Jordan said. “To be honest, they could have bought the permits.”
Support of redistribution
The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, which also manages the Cape Cod Fishermen’s Trust, also contributed to Rafael’s enterprise, but argued for redistribution of the permits as well as better monitoring.
According to Seth Rolbein, the director of the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust, Rafael acquired more nearly a million pounds of quota from the Trust.
From 2011 through 2015, the Trust leased 992,646 pounds of quota. The Trust has no records from 2010 and didn’t lease any to Sector IX after the U.S. Attorney released the indictment, tying Rafael to falsely labeling fish quotas.
“Our priority is to service our fishermen and our community,” Rolbein said. “If there are fish stock that our community is not using that we can not lease out at our subsidized rate to our own fishermen, we then will lease out to other sectors. The trust will lease fish to other sectors. But we will only do that once we’re satisfied that our own fishermen can’t use or don’t have use for that quota.”
What’s next?
The defense revealed Monday that Richard and Ray Canastra, of Whaling City Seafood Display Auction, have entered a Memorandum of Agreement to purchase Rafael’s entire fleet. Neither the U.S. Attorney nor NOAA have taken a final position on the sale.