One of the two Florida divers convicted of theft after freeing 19 sharks and a grouper from a longline and pardoned by President Trump earlier this week said that he was surprised the clemency came through.
“This is something I never thought I’d hold,” John Moore Jr. said on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, as he held the copy of the pardon signed by Trump.
Moore Jr., the captain of the boat, and Tanner Mansell, a crew member, noticed what they viewed as an illegal fishing line three miles off the coast of Florida in 2020. The duo freed the sharks and a giant grouper and ended up reporting the line to wildlife authorities.
Officials said the line was owned by a fisherman licensed by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to research the sharks. Moore Jr. and Mansell were charged with property theft and were convicted in 2022. The two men were ordered to pay $3,343.72 in restitution, but did not serve time in prison.
Due to the federal convictions, they were unable to travel freely outside of the country and were not allowed to vote in the Sunshine State. Trump’s pardon will now overturn the rulings.
Moore Jr. said he and his legal team did not contact the administration to request the act of clemency.
“We didn’t reach out to the White House. 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 Jr. said.
“Would I have done something different, now that I know that that was a legal line? I was a commercial fisherman. I would never touch a legal line.” the diver added. “But now I know more about this, that those things can exist.”