Talbot councilman pleads guilty in oyster tax case

A Talbot County Council member who ran on a platform of creating a healthier Chesapeake Bay pleaded guilty yesterday in Anne Arundel District Court to 34 charges that he failed to pay oyster inspection and export taxes.

Levin Faulkner "Little Bud" Harrison IV agreed to pay back taxes totaling $3,943 and was fined $5,000 and placed on unsupervised probation before judgment that will expire July 9.

Harrison is manager of Harrison Brothers Oyster Co., a processing and packing firm, and vice president of Harrison's Country Inn and Sportfishing Center on Tilghman Island, a popular destination for powerful national and state politicians that serves oysters nine ways. A second-term council member elected in 2006, he first served on the board from 1998 to 2002.

The attorney general's office said Harrison did not pay his oyster taxes to the Department of Natural Resources from October 2005 to March 2006, when the total exceeded $15,000.

Neither Harrison nor his lawyer returned phone calls.

A charter boat captain, Harrison is the son of Levin "Capt. Buddy" Harrison III, the self-described "Boss Hogg of Tilghman Island," who has been convicted of poaching geese and striped bass.

Last year, a federal magistrate judge in Baltimore fined the senior Harrison $5,000 for acting as a guide during a hunt where Canada geese were killed in excess of the daily limit. In 2006, he was fined for having 31 undersized striped bass on his charter boat.