‘Doing the right thing’: Florida man convicted of freeing 19 sharks pardoned by Donald Trump; left ‘speechless’

A Florida-based shark diver, convicted of freeing 19 sharks intended for research, was left “speechless” after he was pardoned by US President Donald Trump. Tanner Mansell, 31 had accidentally cut a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration longline, and released 19 sharks and a giant grouper back into the ocean.

“I was getting a call from my lawyer and I answered, and he said, ‘Well, I’ve got good news for you. You just got a full presidential pardon.’ I was speechless. I couldn’t even say thank you. I just soaked it in.”, said Mansell to Fox News. Tanner Mansell and John Moore Jr. were among the sixteen individuals granted full pardons by Trump, following their 2020 conviction for theft of property within special maritime jurisdiction.In April 2020, Mansell and Moore took a group that included the Kansas City police chief and a SWAT officer and came across a buoy connected to a longline, over a dive site. A long line is a type of deep-sea fish gear with many hooks, used to catch fish. "It was just another ordinary day on the water," Mansell said. "I had been running trips there for years and never had anything like this happen. I spotted something red in the distance thinking that, you know, maybe it was trash or a diver," he said.

"We saw that it was a buoy connected to a line, which is when we started calling law enforcement."Completely unaware that the longline actually belonged to legally sanctioned National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administering shark research operation, Mansell and his group had cut the line and ended up releasing 19 sharks back into the ocean, as reported by Fox News. He said that he was not aware that one could have the permit to “kill all these sharks”.

He had called the Florida Wildlife Commission as well as NOAA before making the decision to cut the line. "In our mind, the entire time, we thought we were uncovering a crime rather than committing a crime," he added.Although they reached out to law enforcement, both divers were still charged and convicted. They avoided prison but were ordered to pay $3,343.72 in restitution, and their felony convictions barred them from voting, owning firearms, and traveling freely.Recalling the incident, Mansell said that he probably would have acted differently knowing what he knows now regarding laws on legal shark killings. "But if I didn’t know that there were permits for this, I don’t think that I would change anything… when you think you’re doing the right thing, you think you’re doing the right thing,” said Mansell to Fox News. Mansell ardently thanked the White House and the president for granting him the pardon. "I’m just so grateful. I have said thank you every step of the way. Words can’t explain it," he said. "I know that the White House took a look at this and they decided it was worth it. And I got President Trump's signature."