A former captain of a Panama-flagged cargo ship has been convicted of obstructing a Coast Guard inspection in Alabama, authorities announced yesterday.
Prastana Taohim, 38, was found guilty of two counts of obstruction of justice in U.S. District Court in Mobile, Ala., after a jury deliberated for several hours.
Prosecutors alleged that Taohim ordered the ship’s chief officer to throw hundreds of plastic pipes into the ocean and not record the discharge in the ship’s garbage record book, which is regularly inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard.
The garbage record book is a required log, and the discharge of plastic pipes into the sea is prohibited under the International Convention to Prevent Pollution from Ships, known as MARPOL.
According to court documents, the plastic pipes had previously contained insecticide and were used to fumigate a grain shipment.
At trial, witnesses testified that Taohim knowingly made the garbage record book available during a Coast Guard inspection of the vessel on Sept. 21, 2011.
Taohim’s sentencing is set for Aug. 15, 2012.
This investigation was conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division, with additional assistance from the Coast Guard Sector Mobile and the U.S. Coast Guard Eighth District Legal Office.
The case was prosecuted by Trial Attorney David O’Connell of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Anderson of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama.
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Key Facts
- State: Federal
- Category: Environmental Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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