| Abstract: |
James R. Casey, the 74-year-old owner of Casey’s Seafood, in the US state of Virginia, will spend three years and nine months in prison for falsely identifying about 183 metric tons of crab meat as being sourced from the US, WAVY, a Newport News, Virginia-based TV station, reports. Casey pleaded guilty in September in a Norfolk, Virginia, federal court to conspiring to violate the Lacey Act when, from 2012 until 2015, he mixed discounted blue swimming crab meat (Portunas pelagicus) from Indonesia and other foreign countries with Atlantic blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) from the Chesapeake Bay and labeled it as a "Product of the USA", according to the news service, based on court documents. Prosecutors said some of the crab meat sold contained no locally sourced blue crab. The illegally labeled crab meat that was sold for a combined $4.3 million at wholesale prices in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida during the four-year period and made it into such high-end grocery stores as Harris Teeter. In addition to his time in prison, Casey, from the town of Poquoson, Virginia, will spend three years on supervised release, pay a $15,000 fine and participate in financial counseling. |
