Fishing Exec Sentencing

An official of a Seattle-based trawler company will be sentenced next week on a felony charge that he covered up changes in logbooks aboard an Alaskan fishing boat.

Emerald Resource Management Inc. already has been fined $350,000 after acknowledging in federal court last fall that a vessel's log was altered.

Per Pevik, operations manager for Emerald Resource, has pleaded guilty in an agreement reached with the U.S. Attorney's office in Juneau.

"We consider this a serious offense," said Karen Loeffler, assistant U.S. attorney. "The analogy is tampering with evidence."

Pevik is scheduled to be sentenced March 25, said Loeffler. The U.S. attorney's office has recommended he serve less than one year in jail.

Authorities say that in July 1991, Pevik and the captain of the Saga Sea agreed to change the vessel's daily production logbooks from two months before.

The logs originally had indicated that in May 1991 the ship had recorded its position within a 12-mile no-fishing zone surrounding Round Island in Bristol Bay. Round Island is a federally protected sanctuary for walruses

Vessel owners who fish inside such lines risk their boats being seized and missing out on the lucrative fishing season.

From Seattle, Pevik telephoned the captain of the Saga Sea, which then was in port at Dutch Harbor. Captain Frank Vargas, who testified for the government before a grand jury, said Pevik ordered him to alter the logs. Pevik maintained that he simply asked Vargas what could be done, said Richard Troberman, Pevik's attorney in Seattle.

Pevik said the changes were made only to make the logs agree with what crew members said were the ship's actual positions on the days in question. Vargas and another crew member testified that the Saga Sea had never fished inside the 12-mile line, although some navigational equipment apparently indicated otherwise.

"Pevik's position is that the logs were changed so that the boat would not be seized for something that did not happen," Troberman said. Paul Halvorson, an Emerald Resource spokesman, would not comment.

Trawlers keep logbooks to document where their crews drop fishing nets. Copies of the logs are submitted to federal authorities. The logs are used to oversee Alaska's bottomfish industry, the nation's largest fishery.

Vargas and the Saga Sea mate, Vincent Crisci, also have pleaded guilty in the case, but to related misdemeanors. They are scheduled to be sentenced April 20.