Two Americans who cheated in a fishing contest by weighing their catch with lead were sentenced to 10 days in prison and their boat worth $130,000 forfeited.
“I am convinced that these two scammers cheated in multiple contests in recent years,” said Michael O’Malley, the attorney general who prosecuted them in the (northern) state of Ohio. “Unfortunately, they can only be held responsible for what they did on September 30, 2022.”
That day, Jacob Runyan and Chase Kominsky took part in a fishing competition for walleye – a freshwater fish similar to zander – staged on Lake Erie, one of the five great lakes in North America.
The first prize in the competition, $28,760, was promised to the team that managed to catch five of the largest graylings in the lake.
When the catch was weighed from the Runyan-Cominsky tandem, the competition manager had doubts when he found that its size did not correspond to the weight shown on the scales. So he cut open the stomachs of the fish and discovered a number of weights there, along with light gray fish fillets added to weigh them down.
Fishermen Jacob Runyan and Chase Kominsky were disqualified from a fishing tournament in Cleveland on Friday after allegedly stuffing their fish with weight. https://t.co/71D8JPfy82 pic.twitter.com/cfXfUSR6IB
– The Washington Post (@washingtonpost)
October 3, 2022
The contestants were immediately disqualified and the police launched an investigation.
In addition to imprisonment and the loss of their boat, both parties will have to pay a $2,500 fine and have their fishing license suspended for three years, the maximum term stipulated.
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