US President Donald Trump has made a gesture of support for the ocean environment by issuing a presidential pardon to two Florida shark divers who were convicted of theft after releasing a fisherman’s longline catches in 2020.
The pardon has erased the men’s criminal records in a case that their lawyers had argued was “government over-reach”.
John R Moore, captain of a shark-diving charter-boat, and crew-member Tanner Mansell had been found guilty of stealing commercial fishing-gear by a Southern District Court jury in West Palm Beach, as Divernet reported in late 2022.
Captain Moore was an underwater photographer, freediver and former commercial fisherman, while Mansell described himself as a professional shark-diver and cinematographer.
After hearing the news that his conviction had been overturned, Mansell told the Palm Beach Post that his and Moore’s actions had been well-intentioned, and said of President Trump: “Whether people believe in his politics or not, he chose to pardon me – somebody who deeply cares for the environment and only ever wanted to help. I can’t help but feel extremely grateful.”
Orange buoy
The divers had been heading for their second dive-site of the day off Jupiter Inlet when they passed an orange buoy. They had told their six paying guests, who included a holidaying police chief and his family, that this marked an illegally abandoned longline that posed a threat to the sharks they had come to see under water.
Over the next three hours the entire group had worked to retrieve nearly 5km of monofilament line, hooks, weights and the buoy, in the process releasing 19 tiger, lemon, nurse, hammerhead, silky and Caribbean nurse sharks as well as a state-protected Goliath grouper.
Moore later called state wildlife officers to report recovery of the longline, and the pair smiled for the cameras as they hauled the fishing gear onto a dock in Jupiter. The incident was widely publicised after this and footage of the shark-rescue operation was shared online.
US Attorney’s Office prosecutors later said that what the divers had removed was not ghost-gear but the property of Fort Pierce fisherman Richard Osburn, who was licensed by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for shark-fishing in federal waters.
The boat’s captain Scott Taylor had called NOAA to push for a criminal investigation, claiming that his was one of only five vessels in the world permitted to harvest certain species of sharks for research.
Photos and video of the shark-rescue operation taken by the guests was among evidence used against Moore and Mansell at their trial, where the two were accused of having ‘conned’ their guests into helping them, and of having surreptitiously disposed of the buoy and other fishing-gear out of sight of officials.
Three-day deliberations
The prosecution had argued that the divers were aware that the line was legal but had sabotaged it to preserve shark populations for their own commercial interests. The pair maintained that they had felt themselves to be fighting crime rather than committing it.
They had faced maximum prison sentences of five years and $250,000 fines, as well as the possibility of paying thousands of dollars in compensation to the fisherman, but had rejected the opportunity to enter misdemeanour pleas or testify in their own defence.
The jury had taken three days to reach its guilty verdicts, after which the judge had sentenced Moore and Mansell to a year’s probation, and ordered them to pay $3,345 in compensation.
The men had lodged an appeal based on the definition of theft, during which judge Barbara Lagoa had questioned why the charges had been brought in the first place.
“Moore and Mansell are felons because they tried to save sharks from what they believed to be an illegal poaching operation,” she had stated. “They are the only felons I have ever encountered, in 18 years on the bench and three years as a federal prosecutor, who called law enforcement to report what they were seeing and what actions they were taking in real time.”
The convictions were upheld by the appeals court, however, leaving the divers with criminal records and, as felons, unable to vote, own firearms or travel freely abroad.
‘Never stopped fighting’
The about-turn began this April after an Office of White House Counsel representative contacted Moore’s defence lawyers Marc Seitles and Ashley Litwin-Diego to enquire about the case, and last week called them back to announce that the pardons had gone through.
“It was incredible,” Seitles told the Miami Herald. “We couldn’t believe it. We never stopped fighting and justice has finally prevailed. We are thrilled the White House considered our arguments, and determined this was an unjust prosecution. We could not be happier for John and Tanner.”
Ian Goldstein, a defence lawyer who represented Mansell, stated: “We are absolutely thrilled that Mr Mansell and Mr Moore have finally received the justice they deserve. This is a case that never should have been filed.”
Also on Divernet: ‘Ghost-gear’ was live – now shark-divers face jail, Jupiter: Out of this world, Dive The goliath grouper hotspots, Weather windows, Shark Angel No 1
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