"Operation Alligator Thief" revisited

In 2017, a multiyear Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission investigation into egg poaching exposed alligator farm turf wars over the coveted eggs that feed the hide fashion industry. State undercover operatives opened an alligator farm in DeSoto County to hunt down poachers and wildlife law violators roiling an aquaculture industry dependent on annually re-stocking its pens from eggs.

The “Operation Alligator Thief” operation received coverage from Florida Trend (September 2017) to National Geographic.

The state ultimately arrested nine men on 44 charges -- a few of them under a racketeering charge usually used for organized crime -- ranging from egg poaching to illegal alligator killing. A total of 10,000 eggs were involved, the state said.  “Many of these suspects were part of a criminal conspiracy,” the FWC’s Maj. Grant Burton said at the time. “Their crimes pose serious environmental and economic consequences. These suspects not only damage Florida’s valuable natural resources, they also harm law-abiding business owners by operating black markets that undermine the legal process.”

Two years later, the last of the cases will reach a resolution May 6 with nearly everyone receiving probation.

The sweeping announcement in 2017 tended to obscure that the charges involved three distinct cases. One group comprised young men basically accused of illegal gator hunting, not egg poaching. Those four -- Jacob Oliver Bustin-Pitts, 25, Fort Denaud; Isaiah Joseph Romano, 24, Fort Denaud; Matthew Edward Evors, 26, Cape Coral; and Christopher Lee Briscall, 24, Fort Denaud -- received probation last year.

The second case involved just one man, a hunting guide named Wayne Nichols, 43, charged with violating state law on capturing and farming alligators. Nichols fought the case all the way through to a jury trial, which he lost, in October. He’s filed for a new trial and awaits sentencing.

The third and key group to the alligator egg poaching investigation was a crew of egg gatherers led by Robert Kelly Albritton, 38, and included Robert Thomas Beasley, 40, Arcadia, Carl Wayne Pickle Jr., 49, Arcadia, and a biologist required by law to supervise the egg gathering, David Wentworth Nellis, 75, Punta Gorda. They all were charged with conspiring to commit racketeering, among other charges.

Albritton had legitimate egg gathering approvals from the state but allegedly ignored regulations and took other actions that violated the law to boost his egg totals.

Albritton in April pleaded no contest to three charges, including racketeering, and received three in prison, followed by a decade on probation, and must pay $82,254 in restitution to the FWC, a cost that he will share with Beasley, Pickle and Nellis. Those three are scheduled for sentencing May 6. They expect under their pleas to receive probation.

Nellis’ attorney, Chris Blaisdell of Musca Law in Naples, says the state could do better at making its complex rules clear on the standards for supervising biologists like his client.