BOSTON – A fishing boat captain with ties to Carlos Raphael, the so called “Codfather,” has pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to interfering with a Coast Guard inspection of his boat off the coast of the Commonwealth.
Raphael is currently serving a 46 month prison term after pleading guilty in a separate case in 2017, he plead guilty to filing false fishing reports and smuggling cash out of the United States.
The charges stem from an inspection in September of last year.
Coast guard inspectors boarded the fishing vessel Bulldog , owned by Raphael and skippered by 57 year old Thomas Simpson of Portland, Maine. Officials say Simpson ignored the Coast Guard officer’s order to haul in his net and instead released it from the vessel, it then sank.
A salvage operation commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration retrieved the net, and an inspection revealed the he was in direct violation of federal fishing regulations.
Simpson made his guilty plea Friday. At sentencing November 28th he could get up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
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