[fishingtheusaandcanada] Real estate developer facing charges of poaching steelhead trout in Gilroy

 
 
By Mark Gomez
Mercury News
Article Launched: 04/11/2008 04:38:33 PM PDT
 

The president of a Bay Area real estate firm, who last week was charged with filing false tax returns, is now facing federal charges for allegedly blocking a stream on his Gilroy property and poaching endangered steelhead trout.
Luke D. Brugnara, 44, president of Brugnara Corp., was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Oakland on four counts of "taking" steelhead trout and two counts of making false statements during the investigation, according to the Department of Justice. Among Brugnara's holdings are at least one high-rise building in the San Francisco's financial district.
 
This is the first federal criminal case in the country charging an individual and corporation with poaching steelhead trout through blocking access to upstream habitat, according to the justice department.
 
In a separate action last week, federal prosecutors also charged Brugnara with failing to report capital gains from the sale of properties that totaled about $45.6 million. According to property records, Brugnara's holdings include a 16-story office building in San Francisco's financial district valued at $24.6 million, a San Francisco home worth $7.5 million and a home in Las Vegas currently on the market for $7.5 million.
 
Prosecutors allege that Brugnara intentionally blocked the flow of Little Arthur Creek, an important Pajaro River watershed for steelhead trout, through a private dam on his 112-acre property in Gilroy that includes a cabin
and four additional structures, according to court documents.
Brugnara allegedly told an investigator he had used a fishing rod with a "top water floating frog lure" in an attempt to "scare the steelhead up the fish ladder" and through the dam.
 
The population of steelhead in the Little Arthur Creek is threatened with extinction and is listed on the Endangered Species Act, according to the justice department. One of the reasons for the decline in steelhead populations is that access to historic spawning and rearing areas upstream has been blocked by dams, according to federal officials.
 
Prosecutors allege that for about four months in 2007, Brugnara closed off the opening in his dam that had allowed the steelhead to migrate upstream. State and federal investigators found numerous trapped adults downstream of the dam that were unable to migrate upstream to suitable spawning habitat.
 
A federal biologist determined the trapped adult steelhead were vitally important to the species' survival and recommended that the adults be rescued and moved upstream. When the rescue team arrived to move the steelhead, investigators found that the fish were gone and said there was evidence of poaching activities, including a fishing line with hooks attached, according to court documents.
 
Brugnara is also accused of making false statements to state officers during the investigation. Brugnara, who is scheduled to appear Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, could face up to 12 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
 
Attempts to reach Brugnara were not immediately successful.
 
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Contact Mark Gomez at mgomez@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5869.


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