(Unification) Church to pay $500K over shark poaching

[struggle4progress]

Monday, February 12, 2007 · Last updated 7:53 p.m. PT

By MARCUS WOHLSEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SAN FRANCISCO -- The church founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon agreed to pay $500,000 to restore damaged habitat - and avoid prosecution - in the case of a pastor who poached baby sharks from San Francisco Bay, federal prosecutors said Monday.

Under the "non-prosecution agreement," the Unification Church's payment will go toward a $1.5 million fund to undo the environmental damage inflicted by the pastor's bizarre scheme, the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco said ...

Kevin Thompson, 48, who has resigned as pastor of the Bay Area Family Church in San Leandro, pleaded guilty in January to enlisting church members in an 11-year operation to illegally catch and sell at least 465 undersized leopard sharks to pet stores in the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

He was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and ordered to pay $100,000, which will also go toward the wildlife restoration fund ...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Shark_Poachers.html

[Bonobo]

1. 465 Rare Leopard sharks. Right here in OUR country. Sold to pet shops!

I suppose the rest of the world should condemn all of the USA.

Fuck Americans!
They deserve death! Etc.

California leopard sharks, which can take 13 years to reach maturity, live as long as 30 years and are protected under a state law that prohibits the commercial catching of specimens under 36 inches long. Prosecutors said federal wildlife agents seized sharks ranging from 8 1/2 inches to 17 1/2 inches long.

[derby378]

2. And since Sun Myung Moon is in bed with the Bush administration...

Guess what? Not guilty!

BAM!

'Scuse me, 'scuse me...

(a little something for the Bill Hicks fans)

[Cell Whitman]

3. That version was polished up for the moonies LOOK AT THIS!!

Thanks for posting the article ... if anyone doesn't think the moonies have people in high places check this out....

The version you posted is a later, shorter, and I think, more widely used version.
In it they make NO reference to the audio of Moon's preacher who clearly says he told Moon about the operation and that Moon got excited and wanted to use "20 boats" and drew up plans for the operation.

here is a quote from the short version as posted

Moon didn't know about Thompson's operation, said the Rev. Phillip Schanker, a spokesman for the church.

That is a lie and AP's own reporting counters it. Moon may not have known how illegal it was but the pastor clearly says he told Moon about the operation... listen to it...

audio of Moon pastor's sermon spilling the beans on the shark operation here:

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/blogs/?p=822 (the good part is the last 1/4 of the audio.)

Now read this excerpt from the longer earlier version from AP below. Watch what Shanker says. He is Moon's spinner. He was probably over a thousand miles away when the conversation between Moon and the preacher took place but HE knows and then he says it was just some fishing chatter see what you think....the Moon organization helped mold the Republicans.

THE UC THEY ARE PAYING A 500 grand fine for something...

here this is form AP's own first version.


http://tinyurl.com/2y94pv

Church to pay into wildlife fund over shark poaching convictions
MARCUS WOHLSEN
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - The church founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon will pay $500,000 to restore damaged habitat - and avoid prosecution - in a case of a pastor who poached hundreds of baby sharks from San Francisco Bay, federal prosecutors said Monday.

The Unification Church's payment - part of a "non-prosecution agreement" with the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco - will go toward a $1.5 million fund to undo the environmental damage inflicted by the pastor's bizarre scheme.

.....

In a recording of a 2003 sermon, Thompson unabashedly told his congregation just how far he believed that dominion extended, boasting that members of what he called the "Ocean Church" had spent more than a decade catching and selling baby leopard sharks to pet stores.

"We want the smaller the better," Thompson said.

Thompson bragged that a fellow church member had one day discovered a leopard shark pupping ground in mud flats along the bay and had returned with more than 100 baby sharks. He said pet stores would pay $20 per shark and sell them for home aquariums for $75 each.

Moon himself became excited when he learned about the shark-catching operation, Thompson claimed in the sermon.

"He told me, you know you need 20 boats out there fishing," Thompson said. "He had this big plan drawn out."

Rev. Moon "did not have any kind of personal knowledge or involvement with the details or the particulars" of Thompson's operation, said Rev. Phillip Schanker, a spokesman for the church. Any conversation that may have taken place would have been in the context of Thompson having a casual conversation with his 87-year-old spiritual leader about fishing, an activity they both enjoyed.

.....

According to the federal indictment against Thompson and the other men, the Bay Area Family Church owned three boats, at least one of which Thompson told authorities was used for shark fishing.

The boats were stored "for years," Thompson said in interview transcripts, at a San Leandra distribution center for one of the largest sushi wholesalers in the U.S., True World Foods, Inc., a business founded by Unification Church members.

here's how East Bay Express, who has been reporting on this, put it:

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/blogs/?p=882

Moonies Pay $500,000 to Avoid Shark Prosecution

The San Francisco U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed Monday not to prosecute the Unification Church and its founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon for baby-leopard-shark poaching in exchange for a $500,000 fine. The non-prosecution agreement brings an end to the three-year federal investigation into shark poaching in San Francisco Bay. The illegal poaching ring was led by Reverend Kevin Thompson, pastor of the Unification Church in San Leandra. The Express reported last month that Thompson told Moon about the shark poaching and the conservative newspaper publisher condoned it. Last month, Thompson was sentenced to one year in federal prison and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. Prosecutors collected a total of $910,000 in fines and obtained six convictions in the case.

U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan, who was fired by the Bush Administration last month but remains in office, announced the non-prosecution agreement at a press conference at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Ryan also announced that the California Coastal Conservancy and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation both donated $300,000 to go with the $910,000 fines. The $1.5 million will fund leopard shark habitat protection in San Francisco Bay.

Department of Justice press release

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/can/press/2007/2007_02_12_leopardsharks.sentencing.press.html

SAN FRANCISCO - United States Attorney Kevin V. Ryan announced that $1.5 million has been designated for rehabilitating and restoring marine wildlife habitat in the San Francisco Bay to further protect the California leopard shark. $910,000 of the funds have been assembled from payments by a San Leandro church, and restitution by the church's pastor and five other criminal defendants who were involved with an operation that poached thousands of California leopard sharks from the San Francisco Bay for more than ten years. The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC), which includes the Bay Area Family Church in San Leandro, has agreed to pay $500,000 for the wildlife restoration partnership. ....

The HSA-UWC, founded by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, will contribute the $500,000 as part of a non-prosecution agreement with the United States Attorney's Office. ....

"The prosecution of this case casts a bright light on the dark world of illegal worldwide trading in protected wildlife. These leopard sharks were smuggled from California to profit-motivated dealers throughout the United States, and in Europe. But the work of our special agents here, and across the country illustrates that no matter where you are located, if you are illegally buying or selling protected wildlife you will be caught, and you will pay a price for breaking wildlife law," said Paul Chang, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement, Pacific Region.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Listened to your audio link, with Rev. Thompson speaking. He actually said they've been doing this

for THIRTEEN YEARS. Good lord. Proud as punch he was, as well. My God. Some people literally see this world as their personal property, and everything/being in it as there to serve them, enrich them, please them.



Rev. Thompson

Almost too obnoxious to take.

Really appreciate the info. you have provided.

_Bush's friends ALWAYS have a much easier time. Their pals in Miami wanted Orlando Bosch, who had helped engineer the bombing of the first mid-air passenger airliner in history, the Cubana airliner, killing all 73 people on board, including children, to be pardoned, so pResident _{George H. W. Bush} put aside a judgement by Associate Attorney General Joe D. Whitley to deport him, and gave him an administrative pardon. Orlando Bosch lives as a free man, although a bomber/mass murderer, in Miami, Florida, where the Miami City Commissioners named a day, and a street after him.
http://cuban-exile.com/doc_051-075/doc0054.html

Plundering friends of _Bushes.

[Demonaut]

5. I thought Moon was the second coming? could'nt he just turn one

shark into 500 thru a miracle?

[Kelvin Mace]

6. NPR covered this story this morning

with nary a mention of Moon's hand in it.

[Cell Whitman]

7. just listened to it

I can see why they may say they can't prove he knew it was illegal. The members have played that game with all wrongdoing of the Moon organization for years. But how can you ignore his pastor's statement in a sermon to the congregation? Even if all you do is report he said it? NPR obviously heard the whole audio.


But then to scrub the mention from your reporting like AP did and STILL post Moon spinner's bs?