GRAFTON, ILLINOIS, RESIDENTS SENTENCED FOR
SELLING MISBRANDED FISH

A. Courtney Cox, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today that OLIVER READY, age 69, and JANET READY, age 61 were each sentenced to a term of 24 months’ probation following their convictions of falsely identifying fish shipped in interstate commerce. OLIVER READY was ordered to pay a fine of $29,243.20, and JANET READY was ordered to pay a fine of $23,743.20. The READYS were jointly ordered to pay $30,102.85 in restitution to identifiable victims of their offense.

The Court ordered the fines are to be paid within 14 days and will be directed to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Lacey Act Reward Account and to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, less the cost of supervising the Readys during their terms of probation.

As a condition of their probation, the Court further ordered the READYS to cooperate fully with the Internal Revenue Service in its collection of information and investigation into the accuracy of the READYS’ income tax returns for the tax years 1999 to 2007, and to satisfy any amounts of back taxes, penalties and interest the Internal Revenue Service deems to be owing based upon the READYS having under reported income during those tax years.

The Readys operate businesses under the names Ready’s Fish Market and O’Jan’s Fish Stand, both located in Grafton, Illinois. Through those businesses, the Readys sold, among other items, fish that was destined for human consumption. Among the fish the Readys sold was fish that they held out and represented to be walleye and crappie, which are both freshwater fish. The fish that the Readys held out for sale and sold as walleye was actually Alaskan pollock. Alaskan pollock is a saltwater fish. The market value of walleye is higher than that of Alaskan pollock. Similarly, the fish that the Readys held out for sale and sold as crappie was actually tilapia. Tilapia is a freshwater fish whose market value is less than that of crappie. A search warrant executed at the Readys’ businesses revealed evidence of misbranded fish being sold by the Readys. Oliver Ready admitted to tipping off another business about the search warrants that had been executed at his storage facility and business, and to telling that business owner to re-label the fish they had there for sale.

The investigation was conducted by agents of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Law Enforcement, the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Conservation Police and the Missouri Department of Conservation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney James E. Crowe, III.