Local Man Charged in $157K Lobster Scheme

United States Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II announced today that John W. Price, 58, of Kittery, Maine pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court to structuring over $157,000 in cash transactions to evade federal cash transaction reporting requirements. 

Under federal law, financial institutions that dispense more than $10,000 in cash to a customer are required to report the transaction to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  Structuring occurs when a customer breaks up cash withdrawals into multiple increments of less than $10,000, to avoid the cash transaction reporting requirement. 

Court records reveal that between 2008 and 2010, Price, the owner of J.P.’s Shellfish, a seafood distributor in Eliot, Maine, directed his employees who withdrew cash from the J.P.’s Shellfish business bank account to pay for lobsters not to withdraw more than $10,000 in cash at any one time, so as to avoid the cash transaction reporting requirement.

Price faces up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the 12 counts.  He will be sentenced after the completion of a pre-sentence investigation report by the United States Probation Office.

The charges are the result of a collaborative investigation conducted by the IRS, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Law Enforcement, and the Knox County Sheriff’s Office.