Thief Floundered at 7-Eleven, Netted on Tape
By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 14, 2000; Page C01
LOS ANGELES—In all his years as a law enforcement officer in Southern California, Redondo Beach Police Lt. John Skipper had seen some bizarre crime scenes. But this one was different.
Perhaps it was the slime.
Sometime on the night of March 19, a person or persons unknown climbed over the fence at the California Halibut Hatchery in the laid-back surfer-dude town of Redondo Beach, south of Los Angeles International Airport. The thief then immersed him- or herself in the 5,000-gallon fish tank and therein did battle royal with determined though ultimately doomed members of the species Paralichthys californicus, better known as the California halibut.
Evidence was everywhere. Scales. Blood. Dead and dying victims. More than a dozen missing fish, as well as several abalone. And, most damning, a trail of algae leading away, away, to the suspect.
A few small fry? Nobody would have blinked. But this was the crime: Somehow the assailant had managed--with the aid a sizable net and perhaps a length of metal pole employed as a spear--to wrestle Big Mama from her tub of salty water.
To what purpose?
"Foul play," Lt. Skipper guessed.
Meaning: tender moist flaky fillets.
While it would be hyperbole to call the Big Mama case the crime of the century, for the outraged residents and officialdom of Redondo Beach and surrounding South Bay communities, this was one for the record books.
"I've tried over 20 murder cases in my career," said Laurie Belger, the attorney who came to defend the man accused of stealing the beloved halibut. "And nobody gave a damn. But you steal this fish, and eat it? I tell you, it was as if he had barbecued Bambi. People want to put him in the gas chamber."
Why? Because apparently Big Mama was not just a large flounder to those who knew her.
She was the premier attraction at the California Halibut Hatchery, a local, nonprofit, down-at-the-heels enterprise committed to ensuring that halibut will be there for future generations to see, catch and consume with lemon and butter.
Estimated to weigh some 50 pounds, Big Mama, age 25, had been swimming circles in her aquarium at the hatchery for the past decade, occasionally doing her time in the "spawning tank," laying millions of eggs and giving thousands of visiting schoolchildren a chance to see, as one hatchery employee put, "a fish bigger than they are."
Soon the halibut-snatching made first the local Redondo Beach news, then the Los Angeles Times, then TV.
After news reports about the crime, an employee at a convenience store told police that a man had come in trying to sell some sort of fresh halibut fillets. Why would someone attempt to offer black-market fish to a 7-Eleven, even in Los Angeles?
"We don't catch the smart ones," Skipper said.
The police reviewed a surveillance tape from a camera in the convenience store, and detectives recognized the man offering the purloined fish.
"He was a guy we knew," Skipper said. "Tall. Nearly orange hair. Tattoos all over and this leather jacket he wore everywhere that had some kind of symbol, not a pentagram, but something like that, for a rock band he liked."
The clerk confirmed the identification from police mug shots.
Next: A SWAT team descended upon the Hermosa Beach home where Taras Poznik was renting a back bedroom. There they found a net, a metal pole-spear and algae. Forensics experts examined the pole and concluded that it was a metal pipe pulled off the wall at the hatchery. And the algae? A marine biologist said it was a perfect match for the type that grew in Big Mama's tank.
Poznik, a surfer and diver born and raised in the area, was well known among the beach crowd and police as a dude who liked a good time.
After being held on $70,000 bail, Poznik pleaded guilty Wednesday to grand theft of a fish.
He was sentenced to four years in prison, but will serve six months in county jail and then another six in a state facility for alcoholic treatment. He must also pay $50,000 in restitution--replacing a "brood female halibut" is apparently a pricey proposition.
What did Poznik do with Big Mama? It appears he served her at a Manhattan Beach birthday barbecue--her identity unknown to his guests, who upon hearing that they had ingested Big Mama now feel, according to informed sources, "physically ill."
Poznik's attorney, Laurie Belger, said his client was drunk when he stole Big Mama, that it was a "young, stupid mistake," and that Poznik needed "to sober up and turn his life around." And so this might have been just the caper that could save young Poznik--in a weird way.
As for the Halibut Hatchery--it has been experiencing hard financial times recently. Funding pulled by its museum and electric utility sponsors. Now, with all the publicity, the hatchery folks hope that local supporters and halibut fisherpersons come to its aid and write checks to finance the capture of Big Mama's replacement.
At the sentencing, Poznik offered to go out and catch the hatchery another large fish. The court said thanks, but no thanks.
© Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company
By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 14, 2000; Page C01
LOS ANGELES—In all his years as a law enforcement officer in Southern California, Redondo Beach Police Lt. John Skipper had seen some bizarre crime scenes. But this one was different.
Perhaps it was the slime.
Sometime on the night of March 19, a person or persons unknown climbed over the fence at the California Halibut Hatchery in the laid-back surfer-dude town of Redondo Beach, south of Los Angeles International Airport. The thief then immersed him- or herself in the 5,000-gallon fish tank and therein did battle royal with determined though ultimately doomed members of the species Paralichthys californicus, better known as the California halibut.
Evidence was everywhere. Scales. Blood. Dead and dying victims. More than a dozen missing fish, as well as several abalone. And, most damning, a trail of algae leading away, away, to the suspect.
A few small fry? Nobody would have blinked. But this was the crime: Somehow the assailant had managed--with the aid a sizable net and perhaps a length of metal pole employed as a spear--to wrestle Big Mama from her tub of salty water.
To what purpose?
"Foul play," Lt. Skipper guessed.
Meaning: tender moist flaky fillets.
While it would be hyperbole to call the Big Mama case the crime of the century, for the outraged residents and officialdom of Redondo Beach and surrounding South Bay communities, this was one for the record books.
"I've tried over 20 murder cases in my career," said Laurie Belger, the attorney who came to defend the man accused of stealing the beloved halibut. "And nobody gave a damn. But you steal this fish, and eat it? I tell you, it was as if he had barbecued Bambi. People want to put him in the gas chamber."
Why? Because apparently Big Mama was not just a large flounder to those who knew her.
She was the premier attraction at the California Halibut Hatchery, a local, nonprofit, down-at-the-heels enterprise committed to ensuring that halibut will be there for future generations to see, catch and consume with lemon and butter.
Estimated to weigh some 50 pounds, Big Mama, age 25, had been swimming circles in her aquarium at the hatchery for the past decade, occasionally doing her time in the "spawning tank," laying millions of eggs and giving thousands of visiting schoolchildren a chance to see, as one hatchery employee put, "a fish bigger than they are."
Soon the halibut-snatching made first the local Redondo Beach news, then the Los Angeles Times, then TV.
After news reports about the crime, an employee at a convenience store told police that a man had come in trying to sell some sort of fresh halibut fillets. Why would someone attempt to offer black-market fish to a 7-Eleven, even in Los Angeles?
"We don't catch the smart ones," Skipper said.
The police reviewed a surveillance tape from a camera in the convenience store, and detectives recognized the man offering the purloined fish.
"He was a guy we knew," Skipper said. "Tall. Nearly orange hair. Tattoos all over and this leather jacket he wore everywhere that had some kind of symbol, not a pentagram, but something like that, for a rock band he liked."
The clerk confirmed the identification from police mug shots.
Next: A SWAT team descended upon the Hermosa Beach home where Taras Poznik was renting a back bedroom. There they found a net, a metal pole-spear and algae. Forensics experts examined the pole and concluded that it was a metal pipe pulled off the wall at the hatchery. And the algae? A marine biologist said it was a perfect match for the type that grew in Big Mama's tank.
Poznik, a surfer and diver born and raised in the area, was well known among the beach crowd and police as a dude who liked a good time.
After being held on $70,000 bail, Poznik pleaded guilty Wednesday to grand theft of a fish.
He was sentenced to four years in prison, but will serve six months in county jail and then another six in a state facility for alcoholic treatment. He must also pay $50,000 in restitution--replacing a "brood female halibut" is apparently a pricey proposition.
What did Poznik do with Big Mama? It appears he served her at a Manhattan Beach birthday barbecue--her identity unknown to his guests, who upon hearing that they had ingested Big Mama now feel, according to informed sources, "physically ill."
Poznik's attorney, Laurie Belger, said his client was drunk when he stole Big Mama, that it was a "young, stupid mistake," and that Poznik needed "to sober up and turn his life around." And so this might have been just the caper that could save young Poznik--in a weird way.
As for the Halibut Hatchery--it has been experiencing hard financial times recently. Funding pulled by its museum and electric utility sponsors. Now, with all the publicity, the hatchery folks hope that local supporters and halibut fisherpersons come to its aid and write checks to finance the capture of Big Mama's replacement.
At the sentencing, Poznik offered to go out and catch the hatchery another large fish. The court said thanks, but no thanks.
© Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company
This reminds me of the tuna assualt thread. ANd who said TFL doesn't have a sense of humor? 