Pair of Ohio Fisherman charged with felonies after being caught cheating in competition

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

sounds like the cops just want a new boat


Seriously, is there any precedent for this kind of thing?  I don't recall any cops going after Bonds or MacGuire.  The Feds went after Lance Armstrong, but did anything stick?  What about every Italian soccer player?

If they attempted to obtain $28,760 in prize money through cheating and illicit means, yeah that's pretty serious, that would be felony theft for anything else.

This "possession of criminal tools" law in Ohio is bullsh!t though. I've heard about it before, it was apparently written with things like lockpicking equipment for burglaries in mind, but is so broad it applies to pretty much any object anyone can use for any crime ever, and thus things like possessing a cell phone used for a drug deal or car keys for a DUI. Or in this case a boat because they used it to cheat.

"Unlawful ownership of wild animals" seems like a pretty strange charge too if all the fish they had were legal to fish for and legitimately caught (which it sounds like they are, the allegations are that they stuck weights inside the fish, not that they didn't legitimately catch them.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

sounds like the cops just want a new boat


Seriously, is there any precedent for this kind of thing?  I don't recall any cops going after Bonds or MacGuire.  The Feds went after Lance Armstrong, but did anything stick?  What about every Italian soccer player?

If they attempted to obtain $28,760 in prize money through cheating and illicit means, yeah that's pretty serious, that would be felony theft for anything else.

sure, but isn't most cheating in sport done to win more money, usually via future contracts and promotional deals and not necessarily prize money, but it's certainly happened before.  Cheating in horse racing or combat sports would involve prize money, has any of them been charged with attempted grand theft?  I just looked up the Black Sox scandal, they were charged with conspiracy to defraud and found not guilty.  They were, of course, banned by baseball and I suspect that's all these cheating fishermen would get if Ohio didn't have "the cops get your sh**t you dirty criminal" law on the books.

The reason the Black Sox were acquitted was because the evidence disappeared before the trial,otherwise everyone involved likely would have been convicted.

maybe, and maybe not.  I'm still trying to find a previous situation where someone was convicted of a felony for cheating at sport and I can't find one....until now.

Regardless the Black Sox were charged just like these guys have been, and they haven't been convicted yet. So they were by authorities held to the same standard.

I agree that the police probably wouldn't be so aggressive here if it wasn't for the asset forfeiture though.