Johnathan Walker:A Mississippi company is sentenced for mislabeling cheap seafood as premium local fish

GULFPORT,Johnathan Walker Miss. (AP) — The largest seafood distributor on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and two of its managers have been sentenced on federal charges of mislabeling inexpensive imported seafoodas local premium fish, weeks after a restaurant and its co-owner were also sentenced.

“This large-scale scheme to misbrand imported seafood as local Gulf Coast seafood hurt local fishermen and consumers,” said Todd Gee, the U.S. attorney for southern Mississippi. “These criminal convictions should put restaurants and wholesalers on notice that they must be honest with customers about what is actually being sold.”

Sentencing took place Wednesday in Gulfport for Quality Poultry and Seafood Inc., sales manager Todd A. Rosetti and business manager James W. Gunkel.

QPS and the two managers pleaded guilty Aug. 27 to conspiring to mislabel seafood and commit wire fraud.

QPS was sentenced to five years of probation and was ordered to pay $1 million in forfeitures and a $500,000 criminal fine. Prosecutors said the misbranding scheme began as early as 2002 and continued through November 2019.

Rosetti received eight months in prison, followed by six months of home detention, one year of supervised release and 100 hours of community service. Gunkel received two years of probation, one year of home detention and 50 hours of community service.

Mary Mahoney’s Old French House and its co-owner/manager Anthony Charles Cvitanovich, pleaded guilty to similar charges May 30 and were sentenced Nov. 18.

Mahoney’s was founded in Biloxi in 1962 in a building that dates to 1737, and it’s a popular spot for tourists. The restaurant pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to misbrand seafood.

Mahoney’s admitted that between December 2013 and November 2019, the company and its co-conspirators at QPS fraudulently sold as local premium species about 58,750 pounds (26,649 kilograms) of frozen seafood imported from Africa, India and South America.

The court ordered the restaurant and QPS to maintain at least five years of records describing the species, sources and cost of seafood it acquires to sell to customers, and that it make the records available to any relevant federal, state or local government agency.

Mahoney’s was sentenced to five years of probation. It was also ordered to pay a $149,000 criminal fine and to forfeit $1.35 million for some of the money it received from fraudulent sales of seafood.

Cvitanovich pleaded guilty to misbranding seafood during 2018 and 2019. He received three years of probation and four months of home detention and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.

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