Catching The Codfather | 3. Punch in the Kisser

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Support for catching the cod father comes from Rogers Fish Company, founded by lifelong fishmonger and seafood advocate Roger Berkowitz. Rogers Fish Company brings responsibly sourced seafood and chef-crafted meals straight to your door, order online at Rogersfishco.com.

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of outdoor furniture delivered throughout New England, plus plants and garden accessories. Now offering 10% off most in stock furniture, seasons 4.com. There's a piece of the Carlos Rafael origin story that I didn't share before because it feels more relevant here.

When Carlos first arrived in this country, his first job was not cutting fish.

It was actually not in the fishing industry at all. It was with a company you may have heard of called Berkshire Hathaway. Berkshire is best known today as the conglomerate holding company owned by Warren Buffett, one of the biggest corporations in the world, period. What is less well known is that in a truly bizarre journey of American capitalism, Berkshire

Hathaway began as a textile mill in New Bedford, Massachusetts. And right around the time that future business icon Warren Buffett was buying up the company, future fishing mogul Carlos Rafael was walking in the front door to ask for his first job. Here's how Carlos tells the story. The lady at the window had good news.

We have openings for weavers and doffers. These are tough physical, sometimes dangerous jobs in a textile mill.

“And so next, the lady told him, "You have to be 18 to apply."”

Carlos admitted he was only 16, he had just gotten to the US. But as soon as he walked out, he realized he had screwed up. He told the truth. So he took a walk along the waterfront until lunchtime, then he went back and peaked inside the door.

The woman would recognize me if I go back and ask for jobs, you would say, "Hey, but I'm not going to go. You were 16. It's just doing 18 again." So I was watching the woman went out to the back of the optical phalange and went in the

airs for job. This time, when the new woman at the desk asked how old he was, Carlos said right away, 18, when do you want to start? She said, "Now."

And a lie will always catch up with you sooner or later.

But I was a clean lie. I mean, you got bad lies and you got a clean lie. I thought that was a clean lie. I was an outman, anybody. I was just right to get a job and get an ad in life.

Something no one whatsoever disputes is that Carlos is a hard worker. At Berkshire Hathaway, he learned to change out the bobbins and spindles. He learned how to fix the machines, run dozens of them at a time. He got a promotion and a pay raise. And then a year and a half into the job, just as Carlos was coming up on his 18th birthday,

the manager called Carlos into the office. And he said, "Oh, all the youth." And because I had been here for a while since 19th, he said, "You sure, you sure." Yeah, I'm sure. Okay.

Would you mind bringing your best book tomorrow, I said, I'll share. Carlos remembers the manager Hathaway's personal record in his hands, showing how well Carlos had performed at all the various jobs. And for young Carlos, that record seemed like it should have been enough. He had proven himself worthy by every measure that mattered.

But when the manager looked up, he said, "Come back when you're a teen." Carlos was pissed and he did not come back. He went down to the docks and he took a job at the fish house. We're no one cared.

I really don't think it's an overstatement to say that for millennia, the water and the

“waterfront have attracted people who don't like rules.”

The grip of society is just weaker there, and that is part of the draw. As one person put it to me, the West has its cowboys and we have our fishermen. And just like in the West, our frontier had to be tamed, fenced off. But not by sheriff's with guns, this frontier was tamed by environmentalists with lawyers. The party was over.

He's in environmental groups, they have advantages against people making a decent life and an artist fished. From GBH News, this is the big big season 3, catching the cod father. I'm Ian Coss. I've hinted at this idea that fishermen are heavily regulated, that there is a system

in place to control their lives and work, which Carlos Rafael set out to break. And that system exists for a reason, to keep the fish from disappearing. This is part 3, punch in the kisser. Hey, so if you're curious to actually see what we're talking about in these episodes, coming up on our big dig mailing list, I'm going to have a whole photo essay about a trip

I took to the new Bedford Auction House. We're almost all the seafood in the stories unloaded. It was really amazing. I got to watch the whole process unfold from the deck of the boat to the warehouse, to the Auction Floor and everything.

You can get all that in your inbox by signing up at wgbh.org/thebigdig. So let's see, and more to come, thanks so much. When fishermen in New Bedford talk about the environmental groups, there is really one group in particular, they're often talking about.

I'm curious how did you first hear of the conservation law foundation, the CLF?

“All you have to do is speak the three letters, CLF, and before your lips have closed on”

the F sound, you get the long side. Yeah, they're not a friend. Then the distant look. CLF. Like, when did you first hear that name?

And a bed dream, I guess, I don't know. And of course, the strong opinion, what's your opinion of the CLF? And they haven't done nothing positive. It's like a ghost that has haunted the docks of New England for decades now, a bad dream they can't forget because they're still living it.

I'm going to tell the story of how all this bitterness between fishermen and environmentalists began. But the irony is that once before all the fighting started, all the lawsuits and protests, these two groups did not hate each other. In fact, they were allies.

The George's Bank fishing area is one of the richest in the world. So far, the intrusion of oil and gas companies into the area has been limited. But this spring, the department of the... This all starts back in the 1970s. After the oil embargo and the gas lines, the Carter administration was looking for new places

to drill for oil. And George's Bank, the prized fishing grounds off New England, quickly emerged as a top candidate.

“And I tell you what, I remember when they came through the news.”

Angela Samphalipo heard about it right away. It was like, this is not good, something is going on here. Samphalipo did not fish herself, but her husband did. And like most fishermen, he was out at sea weeks or months of the year. So the work of advocacy and politics was often picked up by the fisherman's wives.

Samphalipo led a group of them in Gloucester, Massachusetts. And people just went crazy.

My phone never stopped ringing.

It was, I felt where it was like, was somebody dies in a family. And people just calling to give us the condolences. For the fishing industry, which had just recently succeeded in kicking out the foreign

But Samphalipo realized they had allies in this fight.

In the 1970s, the environmental movement was exploding. And locally, there was a scrappy, young legal group eager to take on cases. It was called the conservation law foundation, or CLF.

“And we went to them and say, you need to do something about this.”

That's how we got to know each other. The conservation law foundation charged that the United States departments of interior and commerce have failed in their responsibility to… In early 1978, conservation law foundation supported by the fishing industry. Took the government to court.

Had there been cases like that before challenging offshore drilling? They're had and they'd all been lost. Doug Foie was the president of CLF, which at that time consisted of just four people. Now they were taking on the combined power of the federal government and some of the biggest oil companies in the world.

According to the Boston Globe, when CLF submitted their documents to the judge, the judge had to provide his own paper clips. So we were beyond scrappy, I'd say.

“And if you're going to pick a case for CLF to sort of be borne around, that's the one.”

It's all the biggest players and this little tiny organization coming in and saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. What about the fish? Against all odds, Doug Foie and conservation law foundation won that case. But it was just the beginning of a decade long fight alongside the fisherman's wives. I mean, the relationship with CLF was great.

Yeah, we all worked, like, many acts, the imminent date that leases for George's bank. Again, and again, the government tried to drill, again, and again, CLF went to court. Matters back in the courts today, and they kept on winning.

Finally, towards the end of the 1980s, the matter made its way to Congress, Doug Foie and

Angela Sanfilippo went together to testify. I didn't write anything down. I mean, this was also new to me. On either side of them were lawyers and lobbyists for the oil companies. Up in front of them were the senators, many of whom also supported the oil drilling.

And I started by saying that we have nothing against oil companies. We understand that the responsibility to warm the people in our country, and we are grateful for that. But we have our responsibility to, we are fishing people. We supposed to take the ocean the feed us every day.

And then she pointed her fingers, shook her finger at the senator and said, "And Senator,

“you need to remember that George's bank is sacred ground.”

It's the burial place of 500 gluster fishermen." And she said, "Back." And I leaned over and said, "Wow, Angela." And she leaned to me and said, "That'll get him." On her way out of the chamber, Sanfilippo remembers an oil executive, stopping her to say,

"If my wife would fight this hard from my job, I would be in heaven." To this day. There has been no commercial-scale oil drilling on George's bank, the fishermen won. But the end of the oil drilling fight also marked a turning point for CLF and the fishermen, the beginning of a new chapter.

I don't even want to talk about it. A lot of fishermen have met, talk about themselves as stewards of the ocean, as caretakers, conservationists, just like Angela Sanfilippo did.

So it was a bitter shock when just as that oil drilling issue was finally settled, New England

fishermen got news that conservation law foundation was filing a new lawsuit, also aimed at protecting George's bank from human harm, but the fishermen would not be allies in this suit. When they filed the lawsuit, they forgot all about us. They don't call it the base date for nothing.

Last year, the Massachusetts fishing industry was third in the nation. But according to state officials today, Massachusetts fisheries are sinking fast. Around the late 1980s, there were increasing signs that the fish stocks, off-new England, were in trouble.

now those boats were taking a toll.

“They were times when we were on George's bank where we would tow the net, and nothing”

would come up. Nothing. Linda DePray worked as a marine biologist with the federal government, which did its own surveys of the ocean using a special research boat. It was like a biological desert, because everything had been fished out.

DePray remembers that by the late 80s, the toes were getting so bad that she would keep checking and re-checking the gear to make sure it was working right. And sure enough, the net would come up with debris, sand dollars, sea and enemies, but no fish. Tonight, are the world's oceans running out of fish.

By the end of the decade, the warning signs were impossible to ignore. But even still, the response from the environmental community was relatively slow on this issue. The environmental community didn't really realize that three quarters of the planet is wet.

“Hopefully you remember the voice of John Bullard, former mayor of New Bedford.”

And CLF's the first organization that does realize that.

CLF, the conservation law foundation. The same folks who had stopped oil drilling on George's bank, they get interested in all the alarming news about fish stocks. Because of course, they know the fishing industry very well. They learned it from the inside.

And by 1990, CLF is no longer the scrappy upstart who couldn't provide their own paper clips. They have their own building, with the staff of close to 60 people. They have real resources. So they start participating in fishery management meetings.

At least we, the council could get some kind of a point on that. Fishery management decisions were made at the time by a regional council in New England then reviewed and enforced by federal bureaucrats in Washington. In case it's not obvious, regulating fishing is not popular work. In the near term, it hurts fishermen.

It hurts consumers, but the benefit of a sustainable fishery takes time to realize if it happens at all. So the politics are difficult. And given how bad fish stocks had gotten, it looked to Doug Foie like the system simply wasn't working.

That the council was not able to make the hard decision. Mr. Chairman, we've been over. I think we also knew that if we didn't manage a fishery would be gone. So the lawyers at CLF started thinking about a new lawsuit. Something that could force the council to make those hard decisions.

And Doug Foie knew that with this lawsuit, if they were successful, the burden would fall heaviest on his former allies, the fishermen. Was it hard to go against the fishing communities after everything you'd been through with the oil drilling? Absolutely, they were friends, they were our allies, and we understood.

“I mean, I think we all understood why this was so passionately important to them.”

It was their life.

And so yeah, it was always uncomfortable.

And here is the twist in the lawsuit. CLF did not sue the actual fishermen, because the fishermen weren't breaking the rules. The whole issue was that there weren't many rules to break. Instead, they sued the federal government, because tucked inside the Magnus Act, that foundational law of fishing management, there was a line that said the federal government

in taking responsibility for these coastal waters also had to prevent overfishing. So it was really the federal bureaucrats who had been breaking the law. In 1991, that lawsuit landed on a desk at the Department of Commerce. And the response was not what you might expect. Looked at the lawsuit and said, "You know what, you're right, we haven't prevented

overfishing." Andy Rosenberg was one of the federal bureaucrats who oversaw fishing at the time, because the science was very clear that these stocks are in terrible shape.

And so what happened is the federal bureaucrats basically rolled over in the face of this

lawsuit. When people like Rosenberg, it was already clear the government needed to do more. And so the court said, "Well, okay, if you agree that you haven't prevented overfishing, go away and prevent it." So the CLF lawsuit meant there would now be a deadline, overseen by a judge for the regulators

to develop a new plan to end overfishing. The deadline was one year. I think a lot of the animosity towards the environmental groups comes back to how this moment

to the fishermen themselves. They brought it to the government. In the mean at this start it, they just got everything complicated because the government steps in the fishermen stay in the outside.

“At least that's how Carlos Rafael sees it.”

The best person to be a conservative is the fishermen. They know they have to conserve for the future, they actually very smart and they know what it takes to survive and to make sure the future survives.

But they never give them credit for that because the idea is just a dumb fisherman.

What do they know? They know everything because you got to call them, didn't they? No. It seems like the sad thing is that in theory, the interests of environmentalists and the interests of the fishing industry should be aligned, everybody wants healthy fisheries.

That is correct. So how did things go so wrong? Because they keep pushing instead of getting to the table and trying to work things out as a good American would do, let's sit and dialogue and see if we come to a comprehensive situation between the fishermen and the environmental groups.

They don't want that because you would solve the problem. A few solve the problem who needs them anymore.

“So you need to have a crisis for them to take advantage of it.”

It's like the politicians.

They never let a crisis go without taking advantage of it for political use.

Compared with the good days, twice the effort for half the fish. It's scary, it's really scary. It's a doomed day situation if we keep on away we're going. In 1991, that sense of crisis was real. This is from a frontline documentary from that year, which featured fishermen in New

Bedford. This is a crisis. It was a crisis. And John Bullard was about to get involved, but not as the mayor of New Bedford. So to catch you up on Bullard's story, in the late 80s as mayor, he took on the environmentally

sound but politically foolish project of building a new wastewater treatment plant for the city.

“Of course, some people were going to have to live next to that sewer plant and they didn't”

like it. And that made me the ex mayor of New Bedford. In 1991, Bullard lost re-election. But out of that tough loss came an opportunity, a call from Congressman Gary Studds, who had led the charge to kick out the foreign fleets and build up the local fishing industry.

Studds wanted Bullard to come to Washington to work on fishery management. And I said, Gary, are you nuts? What do I know about fishing? And he said, John, the people who know about fisheries have screwed everything up. What you have demonstrated is you know how to make difficult decisions.

The 1990s would be a time for difficult decisions. So Bullard packed up and moved to DC to take a job at the Department of Commerce, which includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The people in charge of fishing. In fact, it was technically Bullard's boss, the Secretary of Commerce, who CLF had just sued

to end over fishing. And so early in the job, Bullard sat down with the whole New England congressional delegation plus the Secretary. So you had George Mitchell, who was the Senate Majority Leader from Maine, you know, Kennedy, Gary Studds.

You know, you had very powerful people, and they were telling Secretary Brown, ground fish

in New England is a national emergency, and you guys better treat it like a national emergency. The Secretary, Ron Brown, heard out the Congress people, and then offered this response. We will provide some funding, and the point person is John Bullard. You talk to him. And I was driving back from the Capitol, and I'm talking to Secretary Brown's chief policy

guy, and I said, "Uh, what exactly is a point person anyway?" And he said, "A point person means that the end of all is all the arrow points are in your back, not the Secretary's. Do you understand? I said, I understand perfectly."

The U.S. Commerce Department came up with $30 million to help New England fishermen. The strategy that Bullard's boss, the Secretary of Commerce landed on, was to use federal

John, you are going to provide economic assistance to these people in order to help his colleagues

push through new tougher regulation.

“So, Andy, you are going to be toughest nails, and you are going to get a management system”

in place, so that we bring back the fish stocks. The guy whose job it was to be as toughest nails was Andy Rosenberg. The federal bureaucrat we met earlier. My job was to, you know, try to push forward on the stuff that nobody liked. So, Andy and I had this, like, tag team going back and forth, good cop, bad cop.

Nobody wants to be regulated, I don't want to be regulated, you don't want to be regulated. His job was to make it palatable. I got to play the good cop. That time, that time. Former Mayor John Bullard says, "Change is inevitable, a fisherman had better understand

that."

Business is usual, he's not sustainable, we cannot do.

The painful medicine that Bullard and Rosenberg were pushing would be known as amendment five.

“The fifth amendment to the region's fishing rules since the passage of Magnuson.”

This was the direct result of the CLF lawsuit, the heavy burden that would now fall on the fishermen. It limited what kinds of nets fishermen could use, and most importantly, how many days a year they could fish. There were days at sea, men, less fish, which men less money.

But they all were upset about the upcoming restrictions of the number of days at sea. That got people's attention. Every time we went to a council meeting, we went to a tough issue. I would come on, but I would have pain in my teeth. Angela Samphalipo, who led the Gloucester Fisherman's Wives, was at those meetings of the

regional fishery council, as amendment five took shape. And I called it then this foreign appointment. I went to see him, and he said, "Then nothing is wrong. Tell me what you're doing." That's a bad one.

I saw a moment, then I didn't want to talk to people for three days. Samphalipo was not opposed to all regulation. She wanted the fishery protected, and I want to stress this is true of most fishermen I've talked to. They know it's a finite resource that has to be managed.

But first, Samphalipo had actually supported the conservation law foundation lawsuit.

She knew the CLF people and thought they could prompt some meaningful changes. For example, she supported a limit on how many days every boat could go out to sea. And the same time, there would have been many different ways with what she'd dug holes. But she soon realized that what CLF had set in motion was now very much beyond her control, and beyond what she hadn't visioned.

The fishermen were no longer the stewards of the fish, the advocates for the fish. They had been supplanted. Conservation law foundation would now speak for the fish. Samphalipo remembers a council official pulling her aside at one point when amendment five was still being debated and warning her.

We're so sorry, we have no choice, and I tell you, this is just the tip of the iceberg, prepare yourselves. And it's the truth. In the fall of 1993, with the judges deadline already passed, the New England Fishery Council approved amendment five by a slim vote. The new rules would take effect at the start of the new season, spring of 1994.

I fished 47 years. For fishermen, Rodney, Avala, the new rules would mean the end of a whole way of life. The only life he had ever known. People say to me, "How can you go fishing for that long ago?" Every time I went out, I passed through and gate to that deck.

It was like a sense of freedom, I was free. It was like, "Nobody's watching me. I'm my own destiny." And I would have an opposite feeling when I got home. When I come through that deck again coming in, I get another ship we've been.

I would have got her, right? We're also...

“So the freedom and the responsibility go hand in hand?”

Exactly. Exactly. Not that I want to do anything bad, but it's like, you know, I don't have a big brother looking on my shoulder to go to what? Under Amendment 5, every time Avala left the harbor,

the government would be keeping track. Every time he came back, they would be keeping track. He was no longer free to go fish any day he wanted to. At that moment, did you feel like you had solved it? That this would put New England on a sustainable path to save the fishery?

they were digging a hole next to the commerce building

for what ended up the EPA Ronald Reagan building. In every day, I looked at these guys and hard hats, and I said at the end of the day, they know what they've done, and they know what they've completed, and they know it's going to last several hundred years. Bullard wasn't so sure he could say the same for his own work.

Is my work going to have a lasting impact? Or am I, you know, holes in back the time? The winter of 1994 set low temperature records across the country. For fishermen in New England, it meant ice flows in the bay. Cracked holes, snapped lines.

The mood was already tense, is everyone waited for the new rules to take effect. But for Carlos Raphael, amendment five, would be the least of his worries that year.

“When did you first realize that the federal government was coming after you?”

The first time. The first time. Oh, Jesus.

When I go down to New Bedford to do interviews for the series,

I would often stop by one of the fish markets in town. I'm away home, just to see what was fresh, maybe get something for dinner, and it reminded me that a great fishmonger is really a special treat, and I'm not just talking about a fish seller, but somebody who can really make sure that you're only getting the best quality fish.

Tell you where it came from. Maybe even off of your tip on how to cook it. That is what you get from Rogers Fish Company. You can order online at Rogersfishco.com, or check out their new location at Logan Airport in Boston.

Now, from Battleship Code to the New Bedford Harbor, New Center 13. Good evening, I'm Jeff Phillips.

“And I'm one of Stylos, thanks for joining us.”

New England fishermen say new regulations combined with dwindling stops are putting down. In March of 1994, amendment five went into effect. Immediately, there was confusion about windboats had to have the new nets, where they could get them, and why so many changes were happening all at once. It had been a tough winter already, and now this.

The growing protest is tonight's top story. On March 1st, fishermen were all over local news. "S fisherman are taking on the government." "Fishmen say the government is sinking them." "Fishmen say they'll be forced to swallow a big hook."

There were shots of boats steaming from New Bedford up to Boston in a massive flow of Tila. "Wearing the battle today was this armata of fishing vessels from New Bedford." "Sills clogged up Boston Harbor." There were fishermen waving signs.

“Fishermen predicting the end of a way of life.”

"If they don't want us to fish, just tell us the timing of your stuff playing games." Amendment five is a punch in the kisser for the industry. But just as San Felipe had feared, amendment five was just the tip of the iceberg. Because even as it took effect,

the government scientists started to publish new data. It showed that in just a few years, while everyone had debated how to respond to the CLF lawsuit, fish populations had continued to drop. And quickly, George is banked, had collapsed.

Yellowtail flounder had collapsed. And George is banked, was an imminent danger of collapse. "They announced that they were going to have to close George's bank because there was no quadfish there." So just months after the new rules took effect,

the council still under great pressure to end over fishing, moved to close portions of George's bank entirely. Six thousand square miles of George's bank will be closed for several months. And that meant no fishing for anybody. Again, Rodney Avalon.

"So everybody wouldn't hay while. All these guys by self-acglutary, we can't close the style."

Never has there been a ban this long, or on this such a large area of ocean.

"The closed areas were kind of a shock to the system." Once again, Andy Rosenberg was in the position of bad cop. "I think it surprised a lot of people. There's a big area, it was 8,000 square miles of George's bank that was closed. But it was a system that needed a shock at the time."

The fishermen had fought the foreign fleets to protect George's bank. They had fought the oil companies for George's bank. They lost a huge chunk of it to Canada, and now they're losing more. During that long, eventful year of 1994, Rodney Avalon decided to come ashore for good.

to advocate for his industry.

And he came to share Carlos Rafael's view that the environmental groups, like CLF, that were pushing so much of this change, were not there to help. "The fishermen or the fish." "It'll use an idiot of conservation, because they were just worried about funding for themselves." "They weren't worried about anything."

"Blooby." Avalon remembers, once one of the top lawyers from CLF came down to New Bedford to meet with industry reps, and they all went out to eat together. "And a restaurant here in New Bedford, and she ordered a plate of attic, and I said to

I says, "You are eatin' attic when it's a depleted fish."

"For Avalon, that's said at all." "She says, "Yeah, but it's good." "So it's good for you, but you don't want us to bring in fish, anybody else to eat." "And a attic wasn't even US attic. It was Canadian attic, because there was no regulation on Canadian attic." "It's all caught in a safe place. It's all the same thing."

"She just said they have to go." "I don't think it's fair to paint CLF as a purely cynical actor. I've talked with several

“people who worked there, and I believe them when they say they were trying to help."”

But Carlos and Rodney are right that environmental advocacy is a business like anything else. To survive, they have to show results, they have to be respected, maybe feared, even. One CLF lawyer I spoke with told me that the law is a blunt instrument. When you're up against a big adversary, like the federal government or an oil company, and you've got a nice big target to swing at, the law works great.

When you're trying to stop something from happening, it works great. But if what you're trying to do is craft an elaborate management system that balances the needs of fish and fishing communities, then the bluntness of the instrument can do a lot of harm even as it does good. The lawyer told me it's like using an axe to kill a fly. "You want to take a shot, you're dreaming."

"You take seven of the bitches of stupid." "Now, they might look stupid, and they're nuts stupid." In 2015, when Carlos was being investigated by undercover IRS agents, he shared with them some stories from his past. Remember, at that time Carlos thought these agents were Russian gangsters,

and he was clearly in the mood to brag about his own exploits. "Well, yeah, that was the bad one of my life." One of those stories was about his first major run-in with the law, in 1994. According to Carlos, the trouble all started at the auction house. He had worked out some kind of arrangement with boat owners, where he could bid up the fish

prices on their boats, but then when the fish was delivered, he'd actually pay a little less. It might still be a decent price, but less than what he'd promised. "If I made a mistake in a price or something, I'd get a break from the guys."

“I said, "Are you going to give me 10 cents off of this shit?”

And the thing is, I could really deal with the boats because the boat's well-podigies."

Basically, the arrangement allowed him to bid extremely aggressively and never get burned,

or anyone who tried to outbid him would have to really pay for it. And Carlos says there was one competitor in particular who was really getting screwed again and again. "I mean, I was banging him from all angles that I could to put him out of his freaking measles." According to Carlos, that competitor started telling stories to federal prosecutors. In January of 1994, they charged Carlos with price fixing.

The accusation was that he was actually colluding with other buyers at the auction to make sure that things went their way. To be clear, Carlos himself has never admitted to price fixing. "Maybe I won't that line, but I don't think I ever went over the line." He was content with price hinting. "When the guys would say, "What are you going to do on prices?" says, "What I'm going to do is this.

“It's not what we're going to do. Here's what you want. I think I said enough, right?”

If you're smart enough, I said enough." Price fixing on this scale is a serious felony charge. Something that could put him in prison for years and cripple his business with fines. As Carlos said, the battle of his life up to that point. So Carlos found a high-powered Boston lawyer, a former federal prosecutor himself,

who in Carlos's words had "calaces in his asshole," like a fucking gorilla. Which I think means he was tough. So why did you testify in that case?

"The other two are morons. We weren't at the prison. Even so we didn't do anything."

“Carlos was charged along with the owners of two other fish companies,”

who he allegedly coordinated with on prices. But only Carlos would take the stand. "No, no, no, no, we did a lot of rehearsal and Boston at the at my attorney's office. And all the attorneys at the end, they came to the conclusion. I should be the only one to testify. The lawyer says, "Look, he's the only opus this guy because he's so many dead. This dance for five times. He knows how to dance with these guys."

Fish landings in New Badford declined substantially, 1994. The case dragged on through all of 1994, just as the shock of the new regulations worked their way through the industry. Carlos himself had to lay off more than a hundred people. At that time Carlos already owned the biggest fish plant in town,

“and he was steadily growing his fleet. So the outcome of this price fixing case would be huge.”

It would be another shock to the whole poor. Finally, in 1995, it was time for Carlos to dance.

"So, I guess the judge, if I could speak before the trial start, so let's go ahead because I like." When Carlos got up on the stand, he noticed right away the jury was mostly women, maybe seven out of 12. So he decided to put on his best sob story. "My English is that they're good."

He told them that his English was not that great because he didn't go to school here, that he might be slow to answer the questions, so please be patient. This from the man who haggled for fish at the auction for living. But he made his appeal.

"And I'm in this chair, and the lady she's right next. I mean, she's almost in my left, the German."

"You're just said to the other go. He's English is pretty good as well as I'm concerned." By the way, he told the same exact story to the undercover IRS agents. "Let's see if the English is pretty good." "But they left, they asked us off, so I got it to seep a ties with me." "I had the jury right off the bed, I had him and my gun."

The U.S. Attorney's Office does not usually invest in cases that it can't win. But as the prosecutors started calling up their own witnesses from the new Bedford Waterfront, the testimony was not as damning as they'd hoped. Maybe it was out of fear, loyalty, or simply respect. But that day in court, the sympathetic side of Carlos Raphael was showing through. The jury found him not guilty. "There was that. I pulled it true."

Afterwards, Carlos ran into the prosecutors in the halls of the courthouse. They had hounded him for over a year at this point, and of course, Carlos didn't have to plain nice for the jury anymore. "Assels, look at me. Fuck all of you. No, I swear to God." Again, this is from the undercover tapes. "They're all saying I'm an asses. Assault, look at me." "So why? Say, fuck all of you. You're one of the fuckers, you know,

with visible motherfuckers. Have you seen the one who breaks?"

“"You're a nice guy." "So you're a fuck with me. That's what you get."”

"You thought I was a fucking done deal. Fuck you with the book, you motherfuckers get more." Carlos walked out the door, went across the street, and bought a $500 shot of King Louis Cognac. He had beaten back the government this time, but he would not be able to save her that victory for long. "John Bullock says that fishermen think 1994 was bad. 1995 will be worse." All through the 1990s, the shocks kept coming year after year, more lawsuits, more meetings,

more amendments, more protests. "This vital industry that provides fish to the American families in this country is threatened like it hasn't been threatened for years." And truly, I can't possibly catalog every flare up in this conflict. "You speak it for a pile of money. Please keep the comments and show the courtesy to the speakers." But when you hear the bitterness in the voices from Avalah, from Raphael, from San Filippo, this is when all that bitterness really started to

harden because they've been betrayed over and over again. That sense of being embattled, besieged, powerless in the face of an overwhelming adversary. "We saw the dream of our children wiped out that they can't keep their heritage after seven in age and generation in their family." Because none of the protests and speeches and media coverage really mattered. The fishermen's

and there wasn't much anyone could do now to stop them. The Wild West Days of Fishing were officially over. [Music]

“I've been thinking about the timing of Carlos Raphael's life in America and how he must have”

experienced this era after coming here with his little plastic TWA wings in search of an opportunity. He immigrated in 1968 at 15 years old. The next year, along with the rest of the world, he saw an image of the Earth from space. The year after that was the first Earth Day. The passage of the Clean Air Act, followed by the Clean Water Act, he came of age in this new era of material limits of scarcity and conservation. And I just think how bitter it would be

for Carlos to see the Rockefellers and the Bullards of the World who had already made their fortunes

in oil and whaling, who never had to worry about environmental groups with high-powered lawyers

“looking over their shoulders. And now just when it's Carlos's turn to make his fortune,”

the rules of the game change. They could kill all the whales, get all of the the loyal for the whales. But we cannot catch a quadfish because they already made their millions. We're not entitled to do that dream. The American dreamy didn't want anybody else to have but they family this come back son of a bitch. And if Carlos resented John Bullard then, well that was just the beginning. Because these two men, the rogue and the regulator,

are now on a collision course that will end decades later, and yet another Boston courtroom. In all that news footage from 1994, there is one clip we found of Carlos, who at that time was a rising force in the industry. He's already balding, but he looks young, no skin under his chin, no clouds in his eyes, everything about him is sharp and hungry. But for once, Carlos does not sound cocky and defiant. The reporter asks what all these changes will mean for his business.

His eyes dart off to the side for a second, then he says, "Probably bankrupt not only for me, but the rest of the play is at the game." But later that same year, 1994, Carlos made a slightly modified prediction that the new regulations would do one of two things to people in the fishing business. Bankrupt them or turn them into outlaws. That's exactly it. That's next time.

Do they think they are going to stop that? Not in a million years.

I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. It's not like they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do. I don't know what they are going to do.

Catching the cod father is produced by Isabelle Hibbert and myself Ian Coss. It's edited by Lacey Roberts. The editorial supervisor is Jenna from a Kim with support from Ryan Alderman

“and the executive producer is Devon Maverick Robbins. If you want to hear more stories like this,”

produced by the same team, just search for the big dig wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find videos of every episode with incredible archival footage on YouTube,

produced by Joni Tobin and Annie Gersen. Towards the beginning of the episode, you heard a few voices who I did not introduce. They are

episode, but you don't hear and I want to acknowledge them as well. Jennifer Atkinson,

“Priscilla Brooks, Dan Sossland and Hayden and Philip Conkling.”

Special thanks this episode to the new Bedford fishing heritage center and to fall river

educational television for generously sharing their archival material. We also featured a few clips

“from the excellent film "A Fish Story" which you can find on YouTube. We'll put a link in our”

show notes. The artwork is by Bill Miller, our closing song is Viva Viva New Bedford by Georges Ferreira.

The big dig is a production of GPH news and distributed by PRX.

“I really hope you're enjoying the show and before I let you go, I just want to drop in with”

that constant podcast reminder to please rate the show, leave us a review, subscribe, and of course, tell our friend. All that stuff really, really does help us keep the show going. Thank you so much.