Mr. Bad Example Wants To Be a Captain

Dude Stinks at Evaluating Risk. This Story Exists Because of That

Peter Swanson May 4

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Nope. Not going to use the guy’s name, even though I could. Every crappy detail in this story comes from one court document or another. His sad existence only caught my attention after a Loose Cannon story about ham actor Sylvester Stallone’s battle against boaters.

Something about that story, which wasn’t even written by me, triggered the dude into making a comment on Facebook:

My first thought was that I must have dumped some dung on his head in a prior write-up, but that search came up negative. So, I had a go with my best friend Google and, as the French are constantly saying, voilà.

And, as Massachusetts people would say when confronting a similar fact-set: What a wicked stupid bahstid! I made the rare decision to omit his name because it was too much like punching down.

Let’s just call him Mr. Bad Example.

(In case you think this is just Loose Cannon being peeved at being told to eff off—no great novelty—rest assured there are a couple of boating lessons to be drawn from this story. At the risk of being too click-baity, I am going to throw these in at the end.)

Mr. Bad Example began earning the name on September 19, 1994, when he was just 20. Police in North Carolina caught him “willfully and feloniously” in possession of a 1991 Chevy S-10 pickup truck, which, even his lawyers admitted, he knew to have been stolen. A judge sentenced him to time served, 84 days in jail.

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Fast forward 30 years and Mr. Bad Example and wife have prospered sufficently to spend $84,000 on an old Grand Banks trawler, which was underway on Lake Champlain on June 9, 2024 when the U.S. Coast Guard came a’callin’ for a random safety inspection. Quoting a federal court document:

The Coast Guard agents asked (Mr. Bad Example) for the vessel’s navigation handbook. (Mr. Bad Example) informed the agents that the handbook was in a cabinet next to the helm but that he could not retrieve the book because he believed there might be a firearm in the cabinet. The agents went to search for the handbook; they found the pistol and spare ammunition magazine but did not find the vessel’s navigation handbook.

The Coast Guard crew issued him a citation and went away. Back at base, however, they learned that Mr. Bad Example had a felony conviction from North Carolina and possibly a second felony. They hunted that Grand Banks down, and took Mr. Bad Example away in handcuffs.

Mr. Bad Example’s protestation that the two handguns and a rifle seized by the Coast Guard in fact belonged to his wife, held no sway, and he was indicted by a Vermont grand jury. Under federal law, a felon in possession of a firearm can be sentenced up to 10 years in prison and fined up to $250,000.

His lawyers have mounted a constitutional defense, arguing that the Second Amendment should protect Mr. Bad Example’s right to carry guns because his prior offense was non-violent, involved no related charges and happened three decades ago.

It should be noted at this point that Mr. Bad Example is a Texan, which may have shaped his relationship with both guns and the Constitution, but he should have realized he was not in Texas anymore (though, truth be told, Vermont is one of the most gun friendly states in the Northeast).

A smart fella would have based his decision to carry on a standard risk assessment. What are the chances of an otherwise law abiding person being caught illegally possessing guns on his boat? Chances are slim. But if one does get caught, what are potential consequences? The consequences are potentially dire—up to 10 years in federal prison.

Then, what are the risks of NOT carrying firearms? On Lake Champlain, nestled between rural New York and rural Vermont, the likelihood that firearms would be needed for self defense on the water is somewhere between slim and non-existent.

But here we are: The case is still active in U.S. District Court, Burlington.

Meanwhile, court documents reveal that Mr. Bad Example wants to become Captain Bad Example, though he is prevented from getting his U.S. ticket by the pending criminal case. Ahh but he has a work-around. Apparently, the British licensing system is not as squeamish as ours. Applying for leave to visit the Bahamas, his lawyers wrote:

For that reason, he is seeking to travel and captain charter boats in international waters where the pending indictment does not present such an obstacle. The proposed trip serves two purposes. First, (Mr. Bad Example) will be able to complete most of his RYA certification for captaining charter boats in international waters.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the trip will serve as an important bellwether to show that (Mr. Bad Example) can and will adhere to any restrictions that the U.S. Probation Office places on him during his international travel. It is undersigned counsel’s hope that (Mr. Bad Example’s) continued compliance with U.S. Probation’s orders will eventually lead to a standing order from this Court allowing him to travel internationally for work with U.S. Probation’s prior approval.

Here it should be noted that Mr. Bad Example and his wife have cruised down to Florida during the criminal case. They spent time in the Keys, where Mr. Bad Example made headlines again. Quoth the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office:

Middle Keys Sgt. Matthew O’Neill and Deputy Martin Corona-Rivera were on patrol at Sombrero Beach at approximately 5:37 p.m. on March 22, 2026, when they were informed a male on the beach was harvesting queen conch. (Mr. Bad Example), 52, of Willis, Texas, possessed four conch. Each conch was returned to the water alive. (Mr. Bad Example) was given a mandatory notice to appear in court.

Florida banned harvesting queen conch in the 1970s. The penalty for possession doesn’t rise to Chevy S-10 levels but 60 days in jail is not trivial either. Denied indigent status, Mr. Bad Example is acting as his own lawyer down here.

Naturally, the prosecutors up in Vermont caught wind of this most recent bad behavior. In September, a federal judge had agreed to put the case on hold for a year—“a diversionary period” for Mr. Bad Example to demonstrate his essential goodness—after which there would probably be a merciful outcome to his case.

Last month, Mr. Bad Example asked the court to shorten the diversionary period so the case against him could end, and he could find a much needed job. Prosecutors wrote a scathing objection:

Although the defendant successfully completed a trip to the Bahamas in October 2025, the defendant stands accused of violating a regulation that should have been especially pertinent for an aspiring charter boat captain. (That the queen conch has been designated a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act heightens this concern; the defendant was close to committing a federal offense as well as a state law violation.) One would assume that an individual who wishes to captain chartered pleasure vessels would know what he is allowed to take out of the sea.

According to police reports, the defendant admitted his conduct and claimed ignorance of the prohibition on harvesting queen conch, suggesting that he could not be bothered to learn what the law required. He should take the small step of addressing that situation before asking for an additional privilege.

Nor should the Court be persuaded by the defendant’s claims of financial hardship. The defendant still has his boat and was recently in the Florida Keys. He offered no reason why he cannot take some other maritime employment, be that as a dockhand, first mate, boatyard manager, or some other position that would provide him with meaningful experience for when he completes his pretrial diversion and later earns a captain’s license.

The defendant’s claim about his inability to land a job in the technology sector is another red herring. This one is also a distraction from the other paths to employment that the defendant apparently refuses to consider.

Two Takeaways

Whatever our position on the contentious issue of guns aboard, we have to recognize that their presence can complicate matters and often do.

Over the past two decades Loose Cannon has covered three criminal cases (today’s is the third) that began with the Coast Guard asking to see ship’s papers and finding “illegal” firearms because they were being kept in the same place.

The first two cases happened because owners had taken their boats into jurisdictions which have tough gun laws, New York City and Massachusetts. These owners had no idea that they were breaking any laws. (In one case, the owner’s administrative assistant had forgotten to update paperwork in his home state.)

Advice: Store official papers and guns separately. I have been boarded a half dozen times, and no Coastie has ever asked whether we had guns aboard. And I have a policy, which applies to my crew as well, of communicating truthfully and succinctly. That is, be polite but do not answer questions that have not been asked.

Now about those conch: That should have been an easy one. No one can take queen conch in Florida—ever. That’s one of the easiest fisheries regs we have down here. Otherwise, Florida fishing regulations are almost as complex as the tax code.

The regs are complex because of varying rules based on species, location, federal or state jurisdiction, licensing, continuously updated seasons, bait restrictions and bag limits. There is even a fishing rules app that consults your GPS location to determine what is mandatory or prohibited at that specific place and time.

In other words, you ought to check daily for the equivalent of a planetary alignment before you try catching anything.