Scott Steer (L) and his common-law wife Melissa Larocque (Steer) outside the Nanaimo courthouse on Friday, May 10th, prior to having a judge throw out their application to have the validity of a warrant challenged, related to a search warrant executed on their Catalina Dr. home in March of 2020. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Jordan Davidson

prolific fisheries violator

Judge rejects search warrant challenge against Nanaimo couple mired in fisheries allegations

May 14, 2024 | 5:56 PM

NANAIMO — A former local commercial fisherman with a long history of illegal angling will be lured back to court to face several more fishing-related charges.

Scott Stanley Matthew Steer, 47, and his common-law wife Melissa Dawn Larocque (Steer) were in BC Supreme Court in Nanaimo challenging the validity of a search warrant at their north Nanaimo home and a flat-bed truck in March 2020.

Justice David Crerar dismissed their application after a 45-minute judgment on Friday, May 10.

The judge said there was ample evidence connecting Steer and Larocque to the Catalina Dr. address to satisfy the requirements of a search warrant to be executed there.

“Mr. and Ms. Steer both provide the Catalina Dr. residence address for their driver’s licenses. In 2017, Mr. Steer provided that address as his residential address to his probation officer. The ITO (Information to Obtain) cites a business receipt issued to Mr. Steer at the address. Again, the corporate defendant’s corporate registrations provided the Catalina Dr. address, as well as listing Ms. Steer as the director of that company.”

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Larocque is the director of the numbered company where the flat-deck truck was registered using the Catalina Dr. address.

Larocque is the registered owner of a Ford Flex and Lincoln Navigator, also registered to the vehicles connected to the Nanaimo home, along with a boat trailer and an attached aluminum boat.

A boat matching its description was allegedly used during a pair of incidents involving Steer where charges were laid.

Items related to alleged illegal fishing operations were found during the search, including fishing gear, invoices for the sale of crab, fuel and moorage receipts, diving gear, dried sea cucumbers, and multiple square blue garbage cans.

Based on the evidence found, Steer was charged with eight counts for the illegal harvesting and sale of sea cucumbers, breaching of prohibition orders against owning fishing gear or vessels, and illegally employing a foreign nation from July 2019 until March 2020.

Larocque, as representative for the numbered company, is facing one count for the illegal sale of sea cucumbers between September and December 2019.

Trial dates for those charges are scheduled to be established in the summer.

None of the unresolved allegations against the pair have been proven in court.

Evidence
Evidence gathered for the search warrant at the Nanaimo home culminated shortly after a pair of incidents early in 2020 in Vancouver which resulted in convictions against Steer.

Steer and another man was identified by video surveillance by a DFO officer in another incident on Feb. 7, 2020, when three men were found illegally fishing for crab in the Vancouver Harbour.

The following month Steer and two other men were aboard a vessel containing 250 illegally caught live crabs, captured out of season in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet.

Steer and the second man, a foreign national working for Steer, told a watchman from the West Vancouver Yacht Club during the incident they were from Nanaimo as they loaded their illegally caught crab into the same 1997 Chevrolet flat-deck truck found at the Catalina Dr. home.

Steer was convicted on five charges that December and given a six-month jail sentence for the incidents in Vancouver.

Justice Crerar said there were “multiple points of strong evidence which link both accused to the Catalina Dr. residence.”

“The totality of the ITO (Information to Obtain) disclosed abundant grounds to believe that Mr. Steer was engaged in illegal fishing, and that evidence of those activities would have been found at the Catalina Dr. residence, and the flat-deck truck.”

Due to previous convictions, Steer is prohibited from fishing or owning fishing equipment for life.

Repeat offender/more legal trouble
Steer has a long list of convictions for a range of fisheries violations and court-ordered breaches spanning more than 17 years, evidence which helped support Justice Crerar’s decision to uphold the search warrant.

In 2008 Steer was fined for fishing out of season, then in 2013 Steer was convicted of eight fisheries violations, jailed for six months and ordered to pay $15,000 for defrauding a crew member of wages.

Steer was convicted of numerous fishing offences in 2016, resulting in four separate jail tenures of between 21 and 80 days behind bars.

In 2017 Steer was convicted of illegally fishing for crab in Burrard Inlet and jailed for four months.

A notice of civil claim against Steer was filed in the B.C. Supreme Court by the province in June of 2021. The B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office is seeking Steer’s Gabriola Island home and more than $1.3 million in cash across various bank accounts.

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jordan@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @JordanDHeyNow