Trump pardons 2 Florida divers who freed 19 sharks and a giant grouper

Jay Weaver, Miami Herald on May 30, 2025

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Two South Florida shark divers thought they were doing the right thing.

But John Moore Jr. and Tanner Mansell were charged with theft and convicted in late 2022 for rescuing sharks and a goliath grouper from what they believed was an illegal fishing longline.

This week, President Donald Trump pardoned the two men, erasing their criminal records in a case that their lawyers and critics viewed as “government overreach.”

Their legal odyssey began on Aug. 10, 2020, when Moore and Mansell saw the longline three miles off the Jupiter Inlet, freed the 19 sharks and the grouper from its hooks, and brought the line to shore. The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged the men with theft, and a jury found them guilty after deliberating for three days — longer than their West Palm Beach federal trial.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks sentenced Moore and Mansell to one year of probation and ordered them to pay $3,345 in restitution to a Fort Pierce fisherman whose equipment was destroyed. Their convictions, upheld on appeal, made them felons, unable to vote, own firearms or freely travel abroad.

Miami defense attorneys Marc Seitles and Ashley Litwin-Diego, who represented Moore at trial and championed the men’s appeal with the Federal Public Defender’s Office, rejoiced over Trump’s decision on Wednesday to grant them full clemency.

“We never stopped fighting and justice has finally prevailed,” Seitles and Litwin-Diego said Thursday. “We are thrilled the White House considered our arguments, and determined this was an unjust prosecution. We could not be happier for John and Tanner.”

West Palm Beach defense lawyer Ian Goldstein, who represented Mansell, echoed their sentiment.

“We are absolutely thrilled that Mr. Mansell and Mr. Moore have finally received the justice they deserve,” Goldstein said on Friday. “This is a case that never should have been filed, and this acknowledgment of such has been a long time coming.”

His client told the Palm Beach Post that his intentions in removing the fisherman’s longline were good, not bad.

“Whether people believe in his politics or not, he chose to pardon me — somebody who deeply cares for the environment and only ever wanted to help,” Mansell said in a text to the Post after his pardon. “I can’t help but feel extremely grateful.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and prosecutor Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald declined to comment on the president’s pardons.

The Palm Beach Post has reported extensively on the the shark divers’ case, noting that Moore and Mansell have said from the beginning they thought they were thwarting a crime, not committing one. It’s why they called state wildlife officers to report the longline off the Jupiter Inlet, and why they smiled as they hauled the fishing gear onto a Jupiter dock — a moment photographed and shared online by a local blogger.

Fishermen vs. shark divers

The photo went viral, the Post reported. It ruptured an already tenuous relationship between the local fishing and shark-diving communities and prompted Scott Taylor, captain of the boat to which the longline belonged, to call the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and seek a criminal investigation.

The longline belonged to one of only five vessels in the world permitted by NOAA to harvest sandbar sharks for research, the Post reported. Federal prosecutors argued Moore and Mansell knew the line was legal and sabotaged it anyway to preserve shark populations for their own commercial interests.

A GoFundMe campaign raised more than $28,000 for the divers’ legal defense, while one launched for the fisherman raised about $4,500. The divers rejected a misdemeanor plea deal on the eve of trial and chose not to testify in their defense, either.

After their loss in the federal district court, Moore and Mansell appealed over a legal point on the definition of theft, to no avail. But a panel of judges on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals questioned why a federal prosecutor filed the theft charges against them in the first place.

Analogy to ‘Les Miserables’ inspector

Appellate Judge Barbara Lagoa said Watts-Fitzgerald prosecuted the men “for reasons that defy understanding.” She compared him to Inspector Javert — a police detective in Victor Hugo’s novel “Les Misérables” who relentlessly pursued a man for decades over the theft of a single loaf of bread.

“Moore and Mansell are felons because they tried to save sharks from what they believed to be an illegal poaching operation,” Lagoa wrote. “They are the only felons I have ever encountered, in eighteen years on the bench and three years as a federal prosecutor, who called law enforcement to report what they were seeing and what actions they were taking in real time.”

All seemed hopeless for Moore and Mansell, until, out of the blue, a lawyer with the Office of the White House Counsel contacted Moore’s defense lawyers, Seitles and Litwin-Diego, in April to inquire about the case. On Wednesday, the lawyer called them back with news of their pardons.

“It was incredible,” Seitles told the Herald. “We couldn’t believe it.”