A Mississippi company is sentenced for mislabeling cheap seafood as
premium local fish
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[December 14, 2024]
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — The largest seafood distributor on the
Mississippi Gulf Coast and two of its managers have been sentenced on
federal charges of mislabeling inexpensive imported seafood as local
premium fish, weeks after a restaurant and its co-owner were also
sentenced.
“This large-scale scheme to misbrand imported seafood as local Gulf
Coast seafood hurt local fishermen and consumers,” said Todd Gee, the
U.S. attorney for southern Mississippi. “These criminal convictions
should put restaurants and wholesalers on notice that they must be
honest with customers about what is actually being sold.”
Sentencing took place Wednesday in Gulfport for Quality Poultry and
Seafood Inc., sales manager Todd A. Rosetti and business manager James
W. Gunkel.
QPS and the two managers pleaded guilty Aug. 27 to conspiring to
mislabel seafood and commit wire fraud.

QPS was sentenced to five years of probation and was ordered to pay $1
million in forfeitures and a $500,000 criminal fine. Prosecutors said
the misbranding scheme began as early as 2002 and continued through
November 2019.
Rosetti received eight months in prison, followed by six months of home
detention, one year of supervised release and 100 hours of community
service. Gunkel received two years of probation, one year of home
detention and 50 hours of community service.
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 Mary Mahoney’s Old French House and
its co-owner/manager Anthony Charles Cvitanovich, pleaded guilty to
similar charges May 30 and were sentenced Nov. 18.
Mahoney’s was founded in Biloxi in 1962 in a
building that dates to 1737, and it's a popular spot for tourists.
The restaurant pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to
misbrand seafood.
Mahoney's admitted that between December 2013 and
November 2019, the company and its co-conspirators at QPS
fraudulently sold as local premium species about 58,750 pounds
(26,649 kilograms) of frozen seafood imported from Africa, India and
South America.
The court ordered the restaurant and QPS to maintain at least five
years of records describing the species, sources and cost of seafood
it acquires to sell to customers, and that it make the records
available to any relevant federal, state or local government agency.
Mahoney’s was sentenced to five years of probation. It was also
ordered to pay a $149,000 criminal fine and to forfeit $1.35 million
for some of the money it received from fraudulent sales of seafood.
Cvitanovich pleaded guilty to misbranding seafood during 2018 and
2019. He received three years of probation and four months of home
detention and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
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