San Diego

Four San Diego County sheriff’s deputies suspected of taking undersized lobsters will be arraigned Monday and may also be the subject of an internal investigation by the Sheriff’s Department, their attorney confirmed Thursday.

Attorney Jim Pokorny, whose younger brother John Pokorny was one of those arrested, said he is “not at liberty at say” what the four will plead.

The men are divers in the sheriff’s underwater search-and-rescue team. Their attorney said they were making a routine training dive about 11 o’clock one night when one of the deputies became seasick. The others sought to help him, and, in concentrating on that, failed to measure the lobsters they had harvested, the lawyer said.

Their attorney said the deputies took the sick man to shore and met the game warden. They admitted to the warden that they had lobster aboard, which they had not yet measured.

Attorney Pokorny said he measured the lobsters and found nine of the 13 to be near the legal size.

A complaint filed by state Game Warden Mike Castleton with the city attorney charges the men with taking 13 baby lobsters from a commercial fishing bed south of La Jolla Shores. The deputies could be fined up to $1,000 and sentenced to six months in jail, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

Asked whether the men had permission to train at that hour, sheriff’s spokesman Bob Takeshta declined comment.

“We’re just waiting to see what happens,” Takeshta said, confirming the names and ages of the four as Russ Moore, 30; Charles F. Wagner, 36; John A. Pokorny, 37, and Thomas D. Drake, 38.

Their attorney said, “They didn’t have a chance to measure them, so, yes, they violated the letter of the law. They had to weigh the letter of the law with the spirit of their training and come to the aid of an officer in trouble. It’s just unfortunate this had to happen.”