Two Fishermen Who Cheated In $30,000 Prize Competition Facing Attempted Felony Theft
on Oct 05, 2022 • Updated Jan 15, 2025
Two fishermen who seemingly won while competing to win a $30,000 prize in a fishing tournament got caught cheating and officials are looking at a potential felony theft case.
The two cheaters, Chase Cominsky and Jake Runyan, who have “won” several other tournaments earlier this year (2022) are being investigated by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and it’s not looking good for them.
The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office in Ohio told TMZ, “My staff will be meeting with officers from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources today regarding the matter. I take all crime seriously, including attempted felony theft at a fishing tournament.”
Prosecutor Michael O’Malley also added, “These individuals will be held accountable.”
Video footage going viral online shows Lake Erie Walleye Trail Director Jason Fischer cutting open the fish and finding lead weights making the fish weigh around seven pounds.
Fischer is also an extremely professional fisherman who has the unique ability to look at a fish. He knows how much it weighs and is usually never off more than a pound and something looked “fishy” that day as he was directing the competition.
Fischer noted that when he looked at the size and species of the fish he just knew they should weigh around four pounds but for some reason, they were shockingly coming up on the scales at seven-pounders.
“They got a little sloppy from the standpoint of, they put so much weight in such a small fish, relative, that it was very noticeable,” Ross Robertson, host of a popular fishing podcast told Inside Edition.
The two cheaters have been accused many times in the past to the point where they were even threatening to sue people who dared to challenge their winnings.
One of the honest anglers who was there that day, Nate Lueders, who paid $400 to enter the competition was one of those people who accused them of cheating in the past and had something to say to their faces after Cominsky and Runyan got caught.
“They deny it and deny it to the point that they were threatening to sue me. And now look, you know, you’re busted, what do you have to say for yourself? And he had nothing to say,” Lueders told Inside Edition.
Cominsky and Runyan’s catch of five fish weighed 33.91 pounds, which was twice the amount of the fish that were caught by the anglers that came in second place.
