‘Yes, you were concerned about the turtles’: Curley riffs on attorney’s defense for man accused of throwing rock at monk seal

Myles Breiner, attorney for Igor Lytvynchuk, the Covington man accused of throwing a rock at an endangered monk seal in Hawaii, said his client was trying to scare the seal away from two large sea turtles in the water. Breiner said Lytvynchuk had no idea of the significance of monk seals.

“He’s a hero,” KIRO host John Curley quipped on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio.

Lytvynchuk allegedly threw a rock at Lani, an endangered Hawaiian monk seal, near Lahaina, Maui, on May 5.

Last week, federal prosecutors in Hawaii charged Lytvynchuk by criminal complaint for harassing and attempting to harass an endangered Hawaiian monk seal, in violation of the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act.

“The rock narrowly missed her nose, startling her, and causing her to rear up out of the water,” a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated. “Witnesses immediately confronted Lytvynchuk and told him they had contacted law enforcement, to which Lytvynchuk reportedly responded that he was ‘rich enough to pay the fines,’ before walking away. According to witnesses, Lani remained largely immobile for an extended period of time after the incident, which caused much concern over her welfare.”

In response, Breiner said Lytvynchuk is not a wealthy man, but that Lytvynchuk felt pressured in the moment.

Curley noted Breiner has represented January 6 defendants and is well known for his work in DUI and white-collar crime cases.

“He is a tough litigator,” Curley said.

Curley imagines how monk seal defense came together

He imagined what Breiner and Lytvynchuk’s conversation would have been like while preparing for litigation.

“So the lawyer’s like, ‘So tell me what you saw.’ ‘I saw some turtles.’ ‘OK, so you saw the turtles, and you were concerned about the turtles?’ ‘Not really.’ ‘Yes, you were. You were concerned about the turtles. And your experience with monk seals, because you know about these, is that they could possibly hurt the turtles, so you wanted to scare the monk seal away from the turtles, and if you wanted, you could have hit the monk seal. It was that easy for you, but you didn’t. You threw it in front of the monk seal to deter the monk seal, and maybe give the turtles some time to get away,'” Curley said.

“‘That’s what we’re going with, all right. So, when we get on the stand, you just keep talking about how … And you know what, here’s something else nobody’s gonna be able to prove, when you were a kid, you had a turtle that got eaten, and you loved that turtle, and from that time on, you’ve always had the deep affection for turtles, and then you’re also a big fan of the turtles on that TV show,'” he continued.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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