A Florida fisherman lost $2.8 million in prize money after he was disqualified from a fishing tournament in Maryland for failing a polygraph test.
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Phillip Heasley, of Naples, the winner of the 2016 White Marlin Open tournament in Ocean City, Maryland that took place in August 2016, would be disqualified from the tournament, and 13 other contestants who won other competitions would split the prize money, the Baltimore Sun reported.
Heasley and his teammates won the tournament after catching a 76.5-pound white marlin but failed the two polygraph tests required under tournament rules.
Polygraph tests are required in most open-fishing competitions to verify that large prizes are won fairly and are often conducted by private investigators.
Officials say he violated the rules of the tournament for catching the fish before the time contestants were allowed to catch fish, at 8:30 a.m. on August 9, 2016, and lied about it in the polygraph. The tournament organizers made the decision to withhold his prize as a result.
After a two-week trial ten months later, a judge ruled in favor of the tournament’s organizers and against Heasley.
