Kept animals in a pool at his home
A Dutchess County man pleaded guilty on Wednesday (March 17) to illegal possession with intent to sell seven sandbar sharks, a protected species, and was fined $5,000 by the state.
Joshua Seguine, 40, of LaGrangeville, came to the attention of the state Department of Environmental Conservation in July 2017 when he was arrested in Georgia with five undersized sharks in a circular tank in the back of his truck. Seguine told officers he was taking the sharks to sell in New York.
Alerted by Georgia officials, the DEC found that Seguine, under the name Aquatic Apex Life, had been selling sharks on an online “monster fish” forum.
Equipped with a warrant and accompanied by biologists from the Long Island Aquarium and the New York Aquarium at Coney Island, officials discovered an above-ground pool at Seguine’s house with seven sandbar sharks, which cannot be kept in New York without a license.
The search also uncovered two dead leopard sharks, a dead hammerhead and the snout of a smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species. The sandbar sharks are now at the New York Aquarium.
