Man slaughters $10k-worth of lobster by suffocating them at his former workplace

Lobsters were discovered to be ‘stressed beyond normal’ after last Thursday’s alleged sabotage

A man has pleaded not guilty to charges related to his suffocating roughly $10,000 worth of lobsters. (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

A man from Massachusetts has pleaded not guilty to causing $10,000 worth of damage to lobster stock levels at a seafood outlet through suffocation, according to court documents.

Joseph A. Vaudo, 70, faces one charge of vandalising property and another charge of using someone else’s commercial dumpster. The incidents are believed to have happened at Superior Lobster and Seafood in Sandwich, a town in Cape Cod.

Mr Vaudo’s bail was posted at $1,000 and he was assigned a lawyer by Judge John M Julian, who also told him to stay away from staff and premises of Superior Lobster and Seafood.

CCTV footage at the Superior Lobster and Seafood show someone coming onto the property at roughly at 9.18 pm on Thursday last week. Police stated it was an older man in a baseball cap, blue jeans and blue shirt in a white GMC truck. The man is spotted putting trash from the truck into the dumpster and appearing to turn the power boxes off.

Authorities corroborated with the Massachusetts’ archive of motor documents and concluded that Mr Vaudo owned a white GMC truck. Additionally, the trash thrown in the dumpster contained mail with Mr Vaudo’s personal address.

Police arrested Mr Vaudo on 25 June, the day after the incident took place. When approached for comment by the Cape Cod Times, he told the paper he was not guilty before hanging up.

Mr Vaudo used to own a business in the property that the Superior Lobster and Seafood currently inhabits. When he controlled it, it was called Mr Vaudo’s Fish Market.

The patrons of Superior’s appeared unanimous in their condemnation of the act, according to NBC News Boston.

“I’m really happy that the community is rallying behind these guys, though. Their seafood is awesome, and I’m glad they’re recovering quickly," said Sally Clancy to the news channel.

According to the arrest report, Mr Vaudo is alleged to have caused between $8,000 to $12,000 worth of damage by turning off the power boxes keeping the lobsters alive.

Police were informed by the restaurant owner when he came to open up at 6.30 am he saw the lobsters had no oxygen and no circulating water causing them to be “stressed beyond normal”. They were taken to a processing facility.

His pretrial hearing is set for 25 August.