Tag Archives: Mark Parente

Former skipper gets deferred-prosecution deal in fisheries case

August 16, 2018   Mid Atlantic

Thomas Kokell, a former commercial trawler-boat captain, was indicted in 2016 on four counts of mail fraud, conspiracy and filing false fishing reports in connection with an alleged scheme to illegally harvest nearly 200,000 pounds of fluke in 2011 and 2012. The fish were valued at nearly $400,000. Kokell was released Tuesday on his own recognizance after a court appearance in which the deal was approved by a federal judge, according to federal court documents and Kokell’s attorney. He will not enter a plea and the charges will be dismissed, avoiding prison time and fines, if he “avoids future misconduct” over the next year, according to his attorney Peter Smith and court documents. >click to read<07:56

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Fisherman’s case yields complicated evidence trail

February 24, 2018   Mid Atlantic

The federal trial of Thomas Kokell features a trail of evidence including hand-scrawled freight tickets and fishing-trip reports. Stacks of paper slips have cluttered a U.S. courtroom in Central Islip over the past two weeks, a multicolored trail of evidence in the first major criminal trial of a Long Island fisherman charged in a probe of alleged illegal fishing.,,, The charges stem from a five-year federal probe of an auction program that let fishermen harvest beyond their quotas. The investigation has netted seven guilty pleas and prison or home-detention sentences for five other people. One of the men who pleaded guilty is Mark Parente, a fish dealer from New Jersey,,, >click to read<11:16

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Bronx wholesaler pleads guilty – Plea Shows Fraud Afoot in Fulton Fish Market

July 8, 2015   Mid Atlantic

A fishmonger pleaded guilty Tuesday to a systematic cover-up related to the excessive harvesting of fluke, scup and black sea bass in New York. Assistant Attorney General John Cruden noted that the Fulton Fish Market dealer’s case was especially “aggravated because the participants took advantage of a federal program designed to study fish populations and enable law-abiding fishermen to increase their catch.” Read the rest here 12:57

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