Loop & Cox could face felony fish theft and cruelty charges for koi-napping a beloved jumbo goldfish from a pond at UC Santa Cruz -- and reportedly barbecuing and eating it.

(Photo courtesy of Paul Chinn/the San Francisco Chronicle) 

On a campus renowned for vegetarian devotion and counterculture values, anger over the slaying of the gentle, 15-year-old giant gold carp named Goldie was further fueled by news that the confessed thieves were Delta Omega Chi members, an off-campus fraternity that is being taped by MTV network's "Fraternity Life" reality show.

"FRAT Bastards" screamed a headline atop Wednesday's edition of the alternative campus newspaper, Fish Rap Live! It bore a cartoon showing a fraternity kegger/barbecue at the campus koi pond with a frat brother biting into a wide-eyed koi as others are passed out or romping in the pool while a TV camera captures the mayhem.

The furor was inflamed by reports that the fish filchers used a stolen rake to whack Goldie and then scoop her from the pond during the early-morning raid on May 20.

"I've heard from both students and staff a sense of violation," said David Evan Jones, provost at the university's Porter College, where Goldie was the celebrated big fish -- 18 inches -- in a small courtyard pond.

"It's more than a fish -- it's a pet," Jones said. "So students are reacting to the loss of an animal that they've grown to know and love that was taken away and killed."

The whiskered carp was a 1995 gift from David Swanger, an education and creative writing professor. Koi have an average life span of 25 to 35 years -- and some legendary Japanese specimens span two centuries, according to koi fanciers -- so the 15-year-old Goldie was cut down in her youth.

During her life, Goldie had survived raids by raccoons and had become a favorite among students who hand-fed her treats and among kids from the campus day-care center who visited regularly.

"Goldie, swim with the angels," someone wrote on a cardboard memorial bearing a color sketch of the 18-inch fish propped up on the triangular pond Wednesday afternoon. "F-- MTV!" scrawled a less diplomatic scribe.

"Why would they take a fish that's been here for years just to do something crazy," said Crystal Doyal, a senior psychology major. "I'm just so mad."

MTV quickly disavowed any role in the koi caper.  "MTV had no involvement in this incident," said network spokeswoman Eileen Quast. "We didn't shoot the incident and have no plans to include it in the story line." Filming of the local frat episode ends this week and will air later in the year.

This was not the first time shenanigans with wildlife have sparked controversy during filming of MTV's "Fraternity Life" show. A University of Buffalo frat currently on the show drew a district attorney's investigation in March after on-camera frat pledges broke into the local zoo and pondered aloud about stealing an animal as a mascot before leaving empty-handed, according to the Associated Press.

UC Santa Cruz spokeswoman Elizabeth Irwin said a campus police investigation indicated that the two male students are the only ones on the hook for the incident -- with no involvement by their fraternity.

"Rumor has it that the fish was cooked and eaten," said Santa Cruz County District Attorney Bob Lee, who said he hasn't received the police paperwork and couldn't confirm details of the escapade. Speaking hypothetically, he said, because the fish was valued at more than $400 -- police estimated $750 -- the men could face charges of grand theft and animal cruelty.

Irwin said Loop & Cox came forward, expressed remorse for the fish fatality and paid $650 to cover the cost of a replacement koi.

Update 4/17/04:

Loop and Cox weren't smiling when a prosecutor played 11 minutes of damning outtakes of the infamous fish slaying -- which never aired on MTV's "Fraternity Life" series -- before Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Jeff Almquist sentenced them to 200 hours and 300 hours of community service, respectively. The hours are to be served working at either the county animal shelter or Long Marine Laboratory and at an institute for raising ornamental koi.

They also have to attend Alcoholics Anonymous, pay $500 restitution each to UCSC and send a written apology to the university professor who donated the fish to the koi pond.

While MTV officials denied involvement and a prosecutor found no evidence the film crew encouraged the cruel prank, the judge criticized the youth music network and a reality-show culture that "will put anything that people do on TV. It's a shame."

Almquist stressed that MTV filmed the events, rented the frat house and provided the young men with two SUVs, mounted with automatic video cameras, that were used in the midnight May 20, 2003, raid of the pond at UCSC's Porter College.

"It's clear that these were guys playing to the TV sets," Almquist said. "This act offended the entire community," he added, stressing that the frat members had "desecrated" the peaceful koi pond that students enjoyed as "a place of reflection."

Loop, 23, and Cox pleaded no contest to misdemeanor grand theft and vandalism, effectively accepting conviction without openly admitting guilt.

Prosecutor Gretchen Brock portrayed Loop, now a San Jose bartender, as the unrepentant ringleader in the fish-napping. She warned Almquist that Loop repeatedly maintained his innocence in media interviews, saying he pleaded no contest only to avoid jail time.

Brock countered Loop's recent statement to a local newspaper that "they have no evidence whatsoever" by playing a video clip showing Loop and his buddies playing the hand game Paper, Scissors, Rock to see who got to go "catch" the fish.

As the SUV passed through the campus security booth, the interior camera captured Loop saying from the backseat, out of earshot of the guard, "OK, we're going to steal your f -- fish."

Cameras did not record the actual capture of the whiskered carp, which the frat boys scooped up with a garden rake.

But back at the seaside frat house, Loop was shown walking in with the huge koi hoisted triumphantly over his head and bellowing: "Yawwwwh!" Then he showed the fish was still living by flicking its head with his fingers.

Then Cox is seen on an outside deck, clubbing the fish with a 40-ounce beer bottle as some guys turn away, groaning in disgust. Loop then guts it with a kitchen cleaver.

After Cox fried the tiny filet in a skillet, some frat members pick at it with forks. Then Loop suggested hiding the carcass under the house and warned: "The fewer people who know about this right now the better."

Defense attorneys for the two men stressed that soon after the incident, before being charged, they went to campus officials to take responsibility and paid $650 for a replacement koi.

Cox's attorney, Greg Coben, portrayed the koi killing as a "traditional hazing" -- forcing pledges to swallow live, tiny goldfish -- gone awry.  "It's not like they were targeting this particular, beloved fish," Coben said.

Both Coben and Paul Meltzer, Loop's attorney, blamed drunkenness and MTV cameras for spurring the foolish young men on.  "Some people do really stupid things with a camera trained on them," Meltzer said, "and I think Mr. Loop is one of those people."

Finally, Loop rose and said: "Deep, deep down, I do apologize to the Santa Cruz community for everything that I've done."

After court, however, he added: "I do have remorse. ... But at the end of the day, it's a fish. To some people out there (in Santa Cruz), every fish in the bay is their friend. Every fish is spiritual to them."

The judge didn't buy the defense attorneys' argument that, as experienced fishermen, Loop and Cox were engaging in behavior -- cleaning and eating fish -- that many anglers legally do every day at the Santa Cruz harbor.

Almquist noted that Loop, speaking with his probation officer, compared the incident to "fishing out of season" and added that only in Santa Cruz would he be convicted of a crime.

"To sit there and say this is not an act of animal cruelty," the judge said in response to Coben's plea for leniency, "beggars the sensitivity that many people have in this community."

Reference:

The San Francisco Chronicle