An Alaska man and former guide with a long rap sheet of wildlife violations has now been found guilty of multiple crimes involving his commercial fishing business. Michael Patrick Duby, 51, was convicted by a jury on Jan. 15 on the eight most recent charges, according to the Juneau Independent, but his track record of hunting and fishing violations goes back more than 20 years.
Speaking with the news outlet Thursday, Duby explained that he’d pivoted to commercial fishing after losing his hunting and sport fishing privileges for crimes he committed while he was an outfitter.
“My sport fishing rights were taken away, and I was never able to do that, but fishing is my passion, and I was still allowed to commercial fish,” said Duby, a Juneau resident. “I felt that as long as I’d be very careful, I wouldn’t get myself into this situation again. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”
According to the Independent, Duby’s past crimes range from unlawfully hunting game birds and illegally baiting black bears to falsifying records and violating sport fishing regs. Most convictions resulted from crimes he committed in Alaska, but he has also been convicted of similar wildlife violations in Montana.
On Feb. 1, 2012, after a two-year investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Duby was convicted of a felony for killing and selling a bird that was protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. He had been killing and selling black-billed magpies for a number of years, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and he “continued to do so even after he was warned that the sales were illegal.” This led to a five-year revocation of Duby’s hunting and fishing privileges, along with five years’ probation and $2,500 in fines.
On that same day in 2012, prosecutors in Alaska convicted Duby on six misdemeanor charges stemming from other, state-level wildlife crimes he’d committed as the owner of Fish Hunt Charters in Juneau. This included bear baiting, illegally taking a bear from a boat, and false application of a hunting license. Other charges were for fishing violations, including overtake of halibut, fishing with too many rods, and falsifying guide reporting requirements.
State prosecutors had also charged Duby with a felony for falsifying his application for the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. He pleaded guilty to all charges in 2012 and was sentenced to more than nine months in prison, along with more than $40,000 in fines. At the time, it was one of the harshest sentences in state history for fish and game violations, according to KTOO News.
“It appears from his history and his record that he’s somebody who is just unable to stop violating fish and game crimes,” Alaska prosecutor Andrew Peterson said during Duby’s sentencing hearing, according to KTOO.
Read Next: Serial Poacher Somehow Gets a Lifetime Hunting Ban for the Third Time
Duby’s most recent convictions, handed down Thursday, stem from commercial fishing violations that occurred in 2019 and 2020, when he was the owner of Genesis Seafoods. These included misdemeanors for selling personal use fish and taking fish out of season, as well as multiple felonies for falsifying records the state uses to track commercial harvests. Duby was also convicted of commercially harvesting clams without a permit, and of reckless endangerment for not having those clams properly tested before selling them.
Duby’s wife, Esther, a state fish and game operations manager, had been indicted as an accomplice in the commercial fishing case. She was acquitted Thursday, however.
The Independent reports that during the five years the case worked its way through the courts, Duby was represented by three different attorneys before deciding to represent himself. He is scheduled for sentencing in May.
Read the full article here
