A 42-year-old man from Aberdeen, Washington is being held on $250,000 bail after allegedly stealing an 80-foot, $8 million commercial fishing boat in Westport, Washington on February 8th, with the crew still aboard.
According to the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife Police, the suspect Joshua Steadman boarded the Jamie Marie around 9 a.m. on February 8th and somehow persuaded the crew he was the boat's new captain.
The crew, believing their regular captain may have commissioned the man to take the helm in his absence, agreed to head out to sea.
“A subject had boarded the vessel, woke the crew and advised them they needed to get underway,” said the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police on their Facebook page.
“The newer crew did not know the captain, but didn’t argue, thinking he was an alternate operator, or someone sent by the real captain. He surely acted the part as he knew how to start and operate the large vessel.”
However, shortly after getting underway, the crew became suspicious of Steadman and called the boat's usual captain by phone. After speaking with their captain, they realized they were currently riding a stolen boat.
“As the vessel transited further out and onto the Grays Harbor bar about to cross into the ocean, the crew finally figured out something was wrong,” said the WDFD. “The subject driving the boat was talking about meeting the ‘Chinese Mothership’ and was not making sense. He certainly was not describing fishing activity.”
The even more eye-popping detail is that it was Steadman's second nearly successful attempt to steal a boat that day.
According to the police, “(a)s the investigation played out, it was learned the same subject boarded another large vessel in the early morning hours and managed to start the main engines and was attempting to rally the crew for a trip to sea."
“They ran him off the boat but did not report the activity until the current theft was playing out and the information was circling Westport.”
Authorities arrived on scene after calls from the Jamie Marie crew and Steadman was arrested in the harbour. He was found in possession of $4000 in cash and “a large quantity of individually weighed and packaged marijuana.”
He was subsequently transported to the Gray Harbor County Jail and charged with Theft 1, Possession of Stolen Property 1, Vehicle Prowl 1, and VUCSA manufacture/delivery -- a Washington state charge for the possession, distribution, and manufacture of controlled substances. #news
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