August 24, 2018 — The former captain of a New Bedford-based commercial fishing boat, admitted Thursday to interfering with a U.S. Coast Guard inspection of his vessel after he sunk the ship’s fishing net, prosecutors said.

Thomas D. Simpson, 57, of South Portland, Maine, pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to destruction or removal of property subject to seizure and inspection, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.

Sentencing was set for Nov. 28.

Simpson was the captain of the Fishing Vessel Bulldog, which was fishing off the Massachusetts coast May 31, 2014, when the Coast Guard conducted a routine inspection of the vessel, the statement said.

Officers asked Simpson, who was in the ship’s wheelhouse, to haul in the vessel’s fishing net. Instead, Simpson let out more of the cable attached to the net until it detached from the ship and sank to the ocean floor, officials said.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe