ByASSOCIATED PRESS STAFFASSOCIATED PRESS|FEB 12, 2021AT4:19 PM

MADISON, WIS. — Prosecutors have charged three Fond du Lac County residents in a sweeping investigation into illegal bartering for sturgeon caviar around Lake Winnebago.

Online court records show 51-year-old Shawn Wendt of Oakfield was charged Feb. 5 with two misdemeanor counts of unlawfully selling or bartering eggs. He could face up to a year in jail and $4,000 in fines if convicted. The records didn’t list an attorney for Wendt and he didn’t immediately return a message left at Wendt’s on the Lake, the restaurant in Van Dyne where he tends bar.

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.439.0_en.html#goog_109400117According to the criminal complaint, a state Department of Natural Resources warden interviewed Wendt at the restaurant in January 2020 as part of an investigation into sturgeon caviar processing. State and federal law prohibits selling, trading or bartering sturgeon caviar.

Wendt told the warden that he has been processing…