PORTSMOUTH
A Portsmouth man has pleaded guilty to providing fraudulent Virginia boater education certificates, according to the state game department.
Richard C. Harrell faced 16 misdemeanor charges of “obtaining fraudulent documents to make a false status.” He pleaded guilty to three counts as part of a plea agreement, and received a suspended three-year sentence, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said in a news release.
Harrell will serve three years of probation.
The state requires boaters to take a course or pass a free online test to get certified to operate their vessel. Harrell advertised on Craigslist, assuming the identity of the “client” and taking the test for them.
He charged $60, the game department said.
“We’ve had a couple of these in the past, but this is the biggest so far,” said Capt. Chris Thomas of the agency’s conservation police department. “It’s amazing. It’s a free class that takes a couple of hours.
“How lazy are people that they’d pay for a free certificate?”
A game department undercover agent from the Marine Theft and Fraud Unit contacted Harrell and agreed to pay him for a certificate. After receiving it, the department obtained a search warrant and seized computer records to identify those who had gotten certificates without taking the course.
In addition, 24 adults were charged with possession of the certificates. All of them later pleaded guilty to violating a code that makes it illegal to operate a boat without the required boater safety education course, which was a misdemeanor. They each paid civil fines to the game department’s Motorboat Safety Fund. The adults’ names were not released, but the department said they came from Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Suffolk, Chesapeake, and the counties of Henrico and Isle of Wight.
Dozens of fraudulent documents were seized in the sting operation, the game department said.
Lee Tolliver, 757-222-5844, lee.tolliver@pilotonline.com Follow @LeeTolliver on Twitter.
