Diver convicted of freeing sharks off Florida coast says he was surprised by presidential pardon

MIAMI — A shark-diving charter boat captain convicted of theft for freeing 19 sharks and a giant grouper from a fisherman’s longline off the coast of Florida says he's felt like he was living in an alternate universe for the past five years. That changed last week when he received a presidential pardon.

“This is something I never thought I’d hold,” John Moore Jr. said Tuesday, as he showed off the document with U.S. President Donald Trump's signature scrawled across the bottom.

Moore and crew member Tanner Mansell were convicted in 2022 of theft of property within special maritime jurisdiction. The two men avoided prison time but were ordered to pay $3,343.72 in restitution. The felony convictions prevented them from voting in Florida, owning firearms or traveling freely outside the U.S.

Moore said he and his attorneys were surprised by the pardon, because they hadn't petitioned for one.

“We didn’t reach out to the White House,” Moore said. “We never approached them for a pardon, because that was kind of skipping steps, like we had actually filed the paperwork to take this to the Supreme Court.”

Moore and Mansell spotted the longline about 3 miles (5 kilometers) off the Jupiter Inlet in August 2020, according to court records. Believing it was an illegal fishing line, the men freed the sharks and a grouper, reported it to state wildlife officials and brought the line back to shore.

Federal prosecutors later charged the men with theft. Officials said the line belonged to a fisherman licensed by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to catch sharks for research.

Mansell and Moore were convicted by a jury, and their appeals were later denied. The full and unconditional pardons signed by Trump erase those convictions.

“Would I have done something different, now that I know that that was a legal line?” Moore asked. “I was a commercial fisherman. I would never touch a legal line. But now I know more about this, that those things can exist.”