A Washington man was arrested earlier this month after he allegedly stole an 80-foot commercial fishing boat with the crew still on board and tried heading out to sea. Authorities with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife say the 42-year-old suspect, identified in local news outlets as Joshua Stedman, had gotten onto the $8-million boat by pretending he was the captain. He was able to convince the crew to leave the dock — at least for a short while.
Stedman, who remains in jail, reportedly boarded the 80-foot vessel, the Jamie Marie, around 9 a.m. on Feb. 8. The boat was docked in Westport, a popular commercial fishing port at the southern end of the Olympic Peninsula. He immediately woke the crew and told them they needed to get underway.
“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,” WDFW Police wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday. “He surely acted the part as he knew how to start and operate the large vessel.”
Stedman’s charade didn’t last long, however, as he started saying some questionable things that made the crew suspicious.
“[He] was talking about meeting the ‘Chinese Mothership’ and was not making sense,” WDFW Police wrote. “He certainly was not describing fishing activity.”
Authorities say the boat was on its way out of the harbor and about to head into the open ocean when one of the crew members finally called the real captain and realized they’d been tricked. The “imposter skipper” then turned the ship around and brought it back to port around 9:30 a.m.
Two WGFW sergeants were waiting for Stedman back at the dock, where he was arrested by officers with the Westport Police Department. He was found in possession of $4,000 in cash, along with a large amount of marijuana that was already weighed and packaged individually for sale. Authorities also learned that Stedman had boarded another commercial boat in Westport earlier that morning but had been run off by the crew. They didn’t report the incident until later, when they heard about what happened aboard the Jamie Marie.
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Stedman was booked in the Grays Harbor County Jail on charges of theft, possession of stolen property, vehicle prowl, and additional drug charges. He is currently being held there on $250,000 bail, according to KOIN News.
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