Man gets jail; sold oysters from tainted river

A Shoreham bayman has been sentenced to five months in county jail for trying to pass off oysters from the Nissequogue River - which is closed to shellfishing because of high bacteria levels - as clean shellfish from state-certified waters in Mount Sinai Harbor.

Officials with the state Department of Environmental Conservation announced the sentence Friday. They said Kyle M. Frisina was a repeat offender whose shellfish diggers license had been revoked and who had already been convicted three times for harvesting from uncertified waters.

"He represents a threat to the public," said Capt. Dorothy Thumm of the DEC's marine enforcement unit.

Frisina, 31, could not be reached for comment. Calls to a Shoreham number listed to a relative were not returned. Thumm said Frisina was already in Suffolk County jail at the time of his sentencing because of other, unrelated changes, including criminal mischief. Jail officials confirmed this.

"He has a convoluted history," Thumm said.

According to DEC officials, Frisina's latest brush with environmental enforcement came in July 2009, when he was caught harvesting oysters from the river. Shellfishing has been banned there since the 1920s because of high levels of coliform and other bacteria from road runoff and waterfowl feces that can sicken people who eat tainted shellfish. Thumm said Frisina would don a wetsuit and dive for oysters in reaches of the river that are too shallow for DEC boats to patrol.

After he was caught, DEC police inspected 21 boxes of oysters Frisina sold to Cor-J Seafood in Westhampton Beach earlier that week. Samples from those oysters found "excessive" levels of bacteria - between 12 to 35 times the acceptable threshold, Thumm said.

DEC officials said mislabeling the oysters was a serious offense because harvester tags help officials track where shellfish came from and launch recalls if shellfish-borne illnesses occurs.

In May 2010, after being told his permit would be revoked, Frisina wrote letters requesting a conditional permit. He said "the absence of income from harvesting shellfish had significantly impacted his family," according to DEC documents. But agency staff countered that Frisina "consistently harvested shellfish in uncertified waters" and said his actions "demonstrate a wanton disregard for public health and safety."

Frisina was sentenced on Dec. 22 after he pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors related to the improper tagging.