PORTLAND, Maine — The former manager of one of the state’s largest lobster cooperatives will serve eight months in prison for illegally selling lobsters and failing to report the income.
Robert Thompson, 53, of St. George also will be placed on supervised release for three years after he completes his prison term. Thompson was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Portland.
A prosecutor from the U.S. attorney’s office had not requested a specific sentence for Thompson in a memorandum filed with the court Tuesday but said it should be substantially more severe than the 45 days given to his main co-conspirator in the illegal lobster sales.
Defense attorney Walter McKee had argued in his memo to the court last week that Thompson should get the same 45 days that John Price of J.P. Shellfish of Eliot received last year.
Thompson pleaded guilty in December to one count of tax evasion and one count of violation of the Lacey Act, which prohibits the illegal sale of lobsters.
Price reported the income he made while Thompson did not, leading to the tax evasion charge.
The state’s chief federal prosecutor U.S. Attorney Thomas Delahanty argued in his memo that Thompson deceived and misled the members of the Spruce Head Fishermen’s Cooperative, who employed him, paid him well and entrusted him with significant authority and discretion in the conduct of that business. The cooperative submitted a victim impact letter to the court stating that position.
Thompson’s scheme created a situation where not only he but other complicit cooperative members were receiving significant cash payments off the books that were virtually impossible for taxing authorities to detect, the federal prosecutor stated in his sentencing memo.
Thompson originally was charged with felony theft of lobsters, but that charge was dropped after federal investigators learned several cooperative members were selling their lobsters through Thompson to Price for cash.
Special Agent Amy Hosney of the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigations division said Thursday no one else has been charged with tax evasion as a result of the illegal lobster sales.
The prosecutor argued that Thompson evaded $114,000 in federal income taxes from 2004 through 2011. McKee said Thompson has paid the principal of nearly $50,000 taxes owed for the years charged and that he will pay the interest of $15,000.