RICHMOND—District 67 Del. Hillary Pugh Kent has filed 13 bills for consideration by the Virginia General Assembly, including a measure to make it unlawful to interfere with commercial fishing vessels.
According to Virginia’s Legislative Information System (lis.virginia.gov) House Bill 928 “Provides that a person who approaches a commercial fishing vessel without the consent of the owner or person in charge of such vessel with the intent to coerce, intimidate, or harass the captain or crew of such vessel or interfere with the operations of such vessel is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.”
The bill also “makes it a Class 6 felony to communicate to another person by any means any threat to kill or do bodily injury to a person or persons engaged in the activity of commercial fishing on the waters of the Commonwealth or bomb, burn, destroy, or in any manner damage any commercial fishing vessel, and increases this penalty to a Class 5 felony if such threat places the captain or crew in reasonable apprehension of death or bodily injury. The bill makes it a Class 6 felony to intentionally or recklessly damage, injure, tamper with, deface, or destroy a commercial fishing vessel or any….
