East Hampton Town has ordered Christopher Winkler, a Montauk fisherman who was convicted in 2023 of falsifying records in order to sell fluke and black sea bass in quantities that vastly exceed legal limits, to vacate the slip at the hamlet’s commercial dock where his trawler, the New Age, has been docked for around 40 years.
Mr. Winkler was sentenced to 30 months in prison following his October 2023 conviction on five counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, and obstruction of justice for filing false reports to federal regulators. The government asserted that the fish he harvested illegally were worth between $750,000 and $900,000, and had sought a sentence of four to five years in federal prison as well as restitution of $750,000. He surrendered to the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, N.Y., in November.
He was released last week after serving fewer than eight months of his sentence, and is at present at a Brooklyn halfway house, where he must remain for an undetermined period.
The town directed Mr. Winkler to vacate the slip and remove any equipment stored on town property before Tuesday. The town code pertaining to commercial docks stipulates that a permit may be revoked “if licensee fails to comply with any federal, state, county, and/or municipal laws.”
The town notified Mr. Winkler that his commercial dock slip permit would not be renewed because of his convictions in federal court, Patrick Derenze, the town’s public information officer, said in an email on Monday. “These crimes directly involved the use of his vessel, the New Age, while it was docked at a town-owned facility,” he wrote.
Mr. Winkler is the first “in recent memory” whose permit has been denied on the basis of a criminal conviction, Mr. Derenze said. “The decision reflects both the seriousness of the offenses and the fact that town-owned dock space, which is provided to commercial fishermen at a subsidized rate, was used in connection with those crimes.”
In August 2024, he was billed the annual rate of $2,070 for 46 feet of dock space, “a rate significantly below market value and intended to support lawful, community-based commercial fishing operations,” Mr. Derenze said. “The town is of the opinion that town resources should not be utilized to supplement Mr. Winkler’s business ventures.”
Councilman David Lys, who is the town board’s liaison to the Harbors and Docks Slips Committee, said in an email on Monday that “this was a town council decision” that was “solely of nonrenewal of a commercial slip space at a town facility. This decision doesn’t interfere with any of Mr. Winkler’s rights to continue fishing or look for other dock space at a non-town-owned facility.”
But “come hell or high water, that boat is not moving on July 1,” Daniel Rodgers, an attorney who is representing Mr. Winkler, told The Star on Monday, and as of Tuesday afternoon the New Age remained in the slip for which Mr. Winkler was billed last year.
What, if any, action the town will take regarding the slip “is still being determined,” Mr. Derenze said in an email on Tuesday.
Mr. Rodgers previously represented baymen who staged civil disobedience actions at the stretch of ocean beach on Napeague popularly known as Truck Beach after a panel of four New York State Appellate Division judges said in a 2021 decision that the beach was privately owned and residents did not have a right to drive or park vehicles there.
Mr. Winkler’s wife, Tracy Stoloff, addressed the town board on June 17, noting that in sentencing Mr. Winkler, Judge Joan M. Azrack of the United States District Court for the Eastern District “specifically allowed Mr. Winkler to maintain his fisheries permits, enabling him to earn a living and fulfill his financial obligations to the federal government.”
“Given these circumstances,” Ms. Stoloff continued, “Mr. Winkler respectfully asks that the town reconsider its decision regarding the nonrenewal of his commercial dock slip. If the town board and harbor committee were to remove all slip holders based on fisheries violations, the town dock would be empty of vessels.”
Mr. Winkler is 65, and fishing “is all he’s done all his life, it’s all he knows how to do,” Mr. Rodgers said of his client. “Specifically, the judge in federal court refused to cancel any of his federal fishing permits because she wanted him to rehabilitate himself by earning a living, supporting his family, paying back restitution, even though there were no victims in this case, financially. He’s more than willing to do that.”
Regarding the code pertaining to a permit’s revocation, “I can say as a criminal attorney, this is constitutionally unsupported,” Mr. Rodgers said. “There is no indication of what constitutes a violation, any specific conduct. There is no due process in this.” It “will never hold up in court,” he said, “but if this is going to be the standard, this is going to wipe out the commercial fishing fleet in New York State. I’m not saying all commercial fishermen engage in fisheries violations. The point is, a simple parking ticket in the Village of East Hampton is enough for them to cancel your boat slip.”
The town, he charged, is selectively targeting Mr. Winkler. Moreover, Mr. Rodgers said, “there is no evidence anywhere that he did anything illegal on the [commercial] dock. There is no indication, no proof that anything illegal happened on any town-owned property or docks. So I feel confident we’re going to win.”
The United States Department of Justice announced the indictment of Mr. Winkler in April 2021, along with Bryan and Asa Gosman, who were among the owners of Gosman’s Dock in Montauk until its sale last year. The indictment stemmed from about 70 fishing trips that Mr. Winkler made between 2014 and 2017, during which he took fluke and black sea bass in excess of federal catch quotas. The fish was sold to a now-defunct company, Greater New York Fish, which was owned in part by Bryan Gosman and Asa Gosman, at the new Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx.
After the Bronx company stopped operating, Mr. Winkler continued to sell the illegal catch to Bryan and Asa Gosman, who are cousins, through Bob Gosman Co., the Justice Department said. The cousins cooperated with the prosecution and testified against Mr. Winkler. Each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and was fined.
Mr. Winkler plans to renew his slip permit, “like he does every year,” Mr. Rodgers said. The registration application is due to the town harbormaster by Friday, July 11. “He’s got all the paperwork together,” Mr. Winkler’s attorney said. “It will be filed this week.”
