|
Jerry erects a formidable barrier for
reporting on the status of Manuel Arias in suggesting that, "... the
true story of what really happened with his arrest has not been properly
represented in this forum." Furthermore, "...perhaps no one ever will,"
since "various authors perceived ideas with some facts of partial
facts."
I do perceive that Arias'
collaborator, George Norris, is in jail. At his sentencing hearing, which
I attended, I perceived that Arias had been shipping Norris Appendix 1
Phrags deliberately mislabeled as Maxillarias for convenience. [ Note, these
Phrags, which did NOT include P. kovachii, probably could have been shipped
legally if they had bothered to process the proper papers.] I
perceived that the prosecutors claimed that the value of the shipment in
question was about $8,000, but in order to up the legal transgression the
prosecutors said they had the right to claim the entire value of the shipment at
about $45,000. They further claimed, on the basis of some arcane point of
law, they had the right to claim the value of shipments over a three year
span, about $120,000, but since Norris plead no contest, they would
magnanimously limit their claim to $45,000 for sentencing purposes. We
were informed by Norris that he had to pledge his home in Houston as collateral
for Arias' bail and Arias stayed with Norris pending a sentencing
hearing. About 10 weeks later Arias showed up in Miami for the Redlands
Show and was registered as staying at a local Miami residence. I did
personally perceive that two Peruvian vendors were detained from selling at the
Redlands in order to check their inventories against their CITES papers since
someone had claimed that their papers were fraudulent, but eventually
everything was found to be in order. One of the vendors, Manrique,
ironically has also been granted permission by INRENA to propagate P. kovachii
and therefore compete with Arias. Rumor, which I believe, was
that Arias had falsely implicated them as a condition for coming
to Miami without being held in custody. At this point Arias left
Miami, scuttlebutt being that he was sent a fraudulent passport from Peru to
replace the one the US had confiscated. His departure was dramatized as
his having arrived at the airport a half hour before departure and
paying cash for passage so that his passport could not be scrutinized
nor US officials be made aware of his departure. I perceive Arias is
free in Peru, even though he received a twenty-two month sentence in the
US, while Norris is serving a seventeen month sentence in jail
here. Justice? Jerry, which part of this story do you regard as
filtered? What role do you feel that the Homeland Security Act
played in this saga?
If I have any point of view, as Jerry
fears, it is that enforcement of CITES, a treaty designed to protect
animals incapable of giving birth to a million progeny at a time, is out of
control. If Norris and Arias violated CITES, the punishment should have
been commensurate with the gravity of their transgression, perhaps a modest
fine. I perceived during Norris' hearing neither the government
prosecutors nor the judge had any realistic comprehension of the criminal act
involved, nor could they have cared less. It was all a game to them. They
were adhering strictly to the statutes violated and the sentencing
stipulated. Furthermore, I view the draconian sanctions against Selby and
Wes Higgens for their CITES misadventure with P. kovachii in the same
light. Where will CITES strike next?
|
_______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
