New Jersey Scuba Diving

Guilty plea in lobster boat feud

Set rival's craft afire, man admits

Asbury Park Press on 12/5/06
BY JAMES A. QUIRK
STAFF WRITER

A Point Pleasant man pleaded guilty Monday to torching the lobster boat Baby Doll on April 17, 2001 - the bungled climax of a volatile feud between two families jockeying for key trapping spots in the Atlantic Ocean.

[Smith], 40, pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree arson before Superior Court Judge Patricia Del Bueno Cleary, sitting in Freehold. He will serve 90 days in the Monmouth County Jail, Freehold Township.

[Smith] admitted that in April 2001, he set fire to [Jones]'s 38-foot lobster boat while it sat in a slip in a marina off the Shark River's north channel in Neptune. The fire spread to an adjacent slip and damaged another lobster boat - the 35-foot Wacker's Toy - but [Smith] testified he did not intend to damage that boat when he set the fire.

"This case involved a fire deliberately set by a commercial lobsterman who sought to intimidate other lobstermen in order to secure a territorial advantage, " said Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis A. Valentin in a prepared statement. "This plea agreement ensures that the defendant will be held accountable for his dangerous criminal activity."

[Smith] is currently free on $172,500 bail.

The guilty plea is but the latest chapter of the tumultuous conflict between [Smith] and [Jones], which stretches back several years and is centered on who should be able to fish where for lobster. According to court testimony over the years, [Jones] and his sons often blamed the crew of [Smith]'s boat, the Heather Ann, for stealing and cutting their lobster lines.

In May 2004, [Jones], a Howell resident, pleaded guilty to taking a Wingmaster shotgun on board the Baby Doll on March 8, 2001, and firing it at [Smith]. [Jones] testified that there was a confrontation with the crew of the Heather Ann at the Mud Hole fishing grounds, in federal waters off Monmouth County. He intended to shoot [Smith] to scare him, but instead hit his brother, [John], 43, wounding his arms and leg. One shotgun pellet had to be removed from his hip.

In the court hearings for the matter, the crews of both boats said the other side shot first. [Smith] fired at least one round from a .223-caliber Mini-14 carbine - hitting no one - before the boats drifted apart.

After the shooting incident, the Heather Ann was damaged in a suspicious fire on April 6, 2001, while docked in Point Pleasant Beach. No charges were ever filed in that case. The Baby Doll went up in smoke 11 days later.

[Smith] is not the only lobsterman who has lit a match to edge out the competition. In January 2002, arson destroyed a trawler at the Fishermen's Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach. In April 2003, fisherman [Doe], 41, of New Bedford, Mass., was sentenced to seven years in prison for setting the fire, which authorities said was related to a battle over prime fishing grounds.

At the time, local fishermen said the arson was motivated by arguments between trawler and gill-net fishermen about competition in the winter monkfish fishery. [Doe] was a crewman on a gill net boat, which set fixed nets on the ocean floor that are sometimes snagged by the nets dragged by trawlers.

James A. Quirk: (732) 308-7758 or jquirk@app.com

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