A federal magistrate denied bail on March 18 for a La Jolla man suspected of e-mailing death threats to a harbor seal activist at Children’s Pool, saying she did not want him free to return to the site to encounter people he had allegedly threatened.
U.S. District Court Magistrate Louisa Porter said “a disturbing picture” was drawn about Kent Douglas Trego, 54, following his arrest on March 7 in which he allegedly sent an e-mail under the name of “deathtosealwatch.” The e-mail specified the name of a seal activist and said “she will be dealt with very harshly, if not killed.”
The e-mail from “Biker Bobbie” claimed to have contacted “close friends in the California motorcycle clubs” and said they would seek revenge on a woman who videotaped an incident in which two scuba divers and Trego were allegedly disturbing seal lions at Children’s Pool on Sept. 22, 2007. The two divers were later served with notices saying they had violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act for harassing harbor seals.
“The threats are graphic, unambiguous, and vile,” wrote Porter in her order that detained Trego in the Metropolitan Correctional Center without bail.
Porter said in her order that Trego was unemployed, had no assets and spends most of his time at Children’s Pool and a La Jolla library. She said his apparent “level of anger” and his “loner-like activities” indicated a danger to activists of the Animal Protection and Rescue League (APRL), who are present every day at Children’s Pool.
Trego is alleged to have created the name Biker Bobbie and used a Yahoo electronic mail account called “deathtosealwatch.” The first e-mail was sent on Jan. 12, the day after the second diver received his violation notice. The e-mail said “revenge will be taken out” and named the woman.
Log-in records for “deathtosealwatch” were obtained and compared to login records for Trego’s personal e-mail accounts. The log-ins were often sandwiched between Trego’s personal account, sometimes from the same computer and often with very little time between log-ins, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Porter referred to the “ongoing controversy” at Children’s Pool in her order that noted the feud between seal activists and others who say the beach should be used by children and not seals.
The Children’s Pool was originally created in the 1930s as a shallow wading area for children, when Ellen Browning Scripps paid for construction of the seawall. Although a judge ruled that people and seals should share the beach, it is often posted with warnings about high fecal contamination due to the seals, which are protected by federal law.
Trego’s attorney, Mark Adams, argued that Trego has no criminal record and has no history of violent behavior. Several messages were left with Adams, but he could not be reached for comment afterward.
On Sept. 22 of last year, the APRL volunteer videotaped the scuba divers who walked between two groups of resting seals to enter the water, causing 18 of the 50 seals to flush into the water. The volunteer obtained the license plate number of the vehicle in which the divers arrived and reported it to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hotline.
Trego pleaded not guilty to threatening a federal witness and two counts of transmitting threats in interstate commerce. If convicted, he could face 15 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 per count.
His attorney will discuss motions and setting a trial date on April 28.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, NOAA, UCSD Police and the Violent Crime and Cybercrime squads of the FBI.