'IT WAS KIND OF FISHY' Seafood suspect arrested; Eglin Officers Club among suspected victims

A Pensacola man accused in an international conspiracy to illegally smuggle and sell mislabeled seafood to Gulf Coast restaurants, including the Eglin Air Force Base Officers' Club, was arrested in Connecticut Monday.

John J. Popa, 57, was one of three people named on a 28-count indictment, which was returned by a federal grand jury in Mobile on Jan. 28. Popa's codefendants — Karen L. Blyth and David H. M. Phelps, both of Arizona — pled not guilty to the charges Wednesday in U.S. district court in Mobile.

Not present at the arraignment was Popa — former owner of Reel Fish & Seafood on Copter Road and New England House of Seafood on Gulf Beach Highway — who was arrested at his new residence in Plainfield, Conn. on Monday, according to U.S. Department of Justice officials.

A district court magistrate judge in Connecticut released Popa on $25,000 unsecured bond Monday and ordered him to report to district court in Mobile for arraignment, which will be scheduled at a later date.

A trial date for the defendants has been tentatively set for April, but Sandra Rey, with the Mobile district court clerk's office, said the trial's start will likely be delayed to allow the codefendants time to organize their defense.

According to the indictment, the three codefendants allegedly operated two businesses — an Arizona-based importer and a Pensacola-based distributor — which bought more than 325,000 pounds of cheap seafood from several sources, relabeled it as a more expensive product and sold it to more than a dozen customers in southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle between 2004 and 2006.

The indictment identifies the customers only by their initials, but Wednesday, officials at Eglin Air Force Base confirmed that the base's Officers' and Enlisted clubs were among the establishments that bought seafood from Popa during that time.

William Dubose, food and beverage director for Eglin's clubs, said Popa's company supplied seafood to base clubs for about a year before officials got suspicious and ended the contract.

Dubose said regulations require that military health officials inspect and sign off on food suppliers' distribution facilities prior to contract approval.

Popa's warehouse passed the initial inspection, Dubose said, but about a year later, Dubose terminated the contract after Popa mentioned he'd closed the warehouse and started working from his garage.

"When I found out he had moved from his warehouse to his garage, I stopped doing business with him," Dubose said.

"Not to make it sound weird, but it was kind of fishy," he said.