Seafood company owner pleads guilty
The owner of an Eliot seafood company pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Portland to a dozen federal charges for directing an employee to make $157,000 in cash withdrawals in staggered amounts small enough to avoid Treasury Department reporting requirements. The withdrawn money was then used to buy lobsters at the dock, thereby bypassing a fisherman’s cooperative in South Thomaston, according to the Portland Press Herald.
The newspaper reported that John Price, owner of J.P.’s Shellfish, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of structuring cash transactions that occurred between 2008 and 2010 and entered no plea on a remaining misdemeanor charge that he violated the federal Lacey Act by trafficking in illegally sold lobster. That charge is still pending, the newspaper reported.
Price, who faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each of the 12 counts, is scheduled to be sentenced on May 22.
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