Santa Barbara District Legal professional John Savrnoch introduced in a press launch Wednesday that roughly 2,000 bottles of wine and different alcohol illegally possessed by Ocean Fathoms and its principals, Emanuele Azzaretto and Todd Hahn, had been disposed of with help from the Metropolis of Santa Barbara and the Bureau of Alcoholic Drinks Management. Azzaretto and Hahn initially entered a plea deal on July 17 to misdemeanor costs together with promoting alcohol and not using a license, aiding and abetting investor fraud, and “illegally discharging materials into waters of the US.”
The plea settlement included the destruction of the bottles, which had been illegally possessed on the market by Ocean Fathoms, Hahn, and Azzaretto; in totality, their now-destructed stock was estimated to be price a number of hundred thousand {dollars}. As well as, the pair and their firm are on probation that forestalls them from working their enterprise and are required to pay $50,000 in restitution to an investor they defrauded.
In response to the District Legal professional’s Workplace, Ocean Fathoms was based by Azzaretto and Hahn in 2017 once they began sinking crates of wine one mile off the Santa Barbara coast. Nevertheless, in line with Savrnoch, the corporate uncared for to acquire any required permits from the California Coastal Fee or the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers to sink their crates within the seafloor. After a 12 months — “simply lengthy sufficient for a reef ecosystem to develop within the crates and on the bottles,” Savrnoch mentioned — the crates had been eliminated and the bottles had been bought for as a lot as $500 every.
The Federal Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) decided Ocean Fathoms’ wine to be “adulterated, and never suitable for eating, as a result of it was submerged within the ocean and doubtlessly contaminated.” Hahn and Azzaretto bought the wine with out required federally accredited labeling, an alcohol gross sales allow, or a sound enterprise license. Moreover, Ocean Fathoms was accumulating gross sales tax from its prospects, which was by no means paid in taxes to the State of California. The District Legal professional additionally acknowledged the corporate marketed to customers {that a} portion of their income had been donated to a neighborhood surroundings nonprofit, but no proof was discovered suggesting such donations had been made.
Within the assertion, District Legal professional Savrnoch mentioned: “This case concerned people who operated with full disregard for our client and environmental legal guidelines. The California Coastal Fee referred the case to our Client and Environmental Safety Unit and, due to the broad scope of violations, we investigated with the assistance of 5 state and native businesses. The case highlights the significance of our workplace’s relationship with outdoors businesses and it demonstrates our dedication to holding firms and people accountable for violating all kinds of client and environmental legal guidelines.”
