Greetings from Tucson......

Association Dues

I need to remind you to please check your renewal date on your newsletter mailing labels to see if you are delinquent on your association dues. Some folks are several years (yes, "years") delinquent, and need to mail their checks directly to Kevin O'Brien. Please contact Kevin if you need to update your mailing address and/or have paid up your dues and feel that our list does not reflect your correct renewal date. Enough said on that issue....

Newsletter

Effective this issue, our newsletter will again be prepared by our former editor, Bill Halainen. Bill works for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., and has offered to do the newsletter for us once again (he was editor from 1986 to 1991). I encourage all of you to forward any articles of interest directly to Bill. I can't overemphasize the need for you to send in anything that might be of interest - cases, personnel transfers, court decisions, etc. The bottom line, folks, is this: No articles, no newsletter. On a personal note, many of you may not realize the time and effort it requires to publish the newsletter, and I would like to personally thank Len Lisenbee for his tremendous support in keeping the newsletter going for us these past three years. His efforts on behalf of this association are deeply appreciated.

Donation

On February 10, 1994, we received a $1,000 donation from the French Foundation of Boston, Massachusetts! Longtime outdoor writer and author Ted Williams provided the great news, and we all extend our sincere thanks to Ted for his efforts on our behalf.

Special Award

Special congratulations are in order to our very own  Lucinda Schroeder for being selected as one of the Fish and Wildlife Service's "Unusually Outstanding Employees" for 1993. Congratulations!

Regional Rep Elections

FWOA reps in Regions 1, 2, and 7 should plan on conducting elections this summer and forwarding the results to Kevin O'Brien.

New FWOA Hats Available

Mike Lucckino recently obtained new baseball hats with "FWS FEDERAL AGENT" in embroidered lettering. Blue caps come with gold letters, while the Realtree cammo (winter weight) caps have black letters. Prices are competitive; if you're interested, please contact Mike.

Special Acknowledgment

The entire membership of the Federal Wildlife Officers Association would like to extend its sincerest condolences to Pete and Dino Nylander over the loss of their youngest daughter, Jodi. We pray that our heartfelt thoughts and prayers will in some small way comfort you and your family through this time of sorrow. God bless you both.

Elephant Ivory Smuggler Sentenced

On March 9, 1994, Ebbe Tony Lofqvist, 30, a Swedish national arrested by FWS and Customs agents for smuggling elephant tusks into the United States, was sentenced to ten months in jail and fined $2,050 by Judge Shirley Whohl Kram in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. Lofqvist, who was charged with smuggling ivory in violation of Customs laws and FWS statutes, pleaded guilty to smuggling six tusks and forfeited the uncarved elephant tusks that agents seized when he was arrested last September. Lofqvist had been in custody since that time.

Lofqvist was apprehended after a six-month undercover operation conducted jointly by the two agencies. Lofqvist smuggled the tusks into this country from Sweden by describing them on Customs documents as engine parts. He had arranged to sell them to an undercover Customs agent for $180,000. Lofqvist also offered to sell Chinese artifacts, antique furniture, ivory carvings, uncut ivory, and gorilla hands and feet; he told one undercover agent that he also had access to thousands of pounds of elephant ivory stored in a German warehouse. The tusks he sold to the agents were apparently imported to Germany from Zambia in 1973. The case was initiated by  Kevin O'Brien in cooperation with Customs personnel in Maine and New York. FWS officer's from the Lawrence, New York, office actively participated in the apprehension.

Marijuana Cultivation

On June 2, 1993,  George Hines and Carolina Sandhills NWR manager Rick Ingram located a marijuana plantation containing 500 plants in a remote portion of that refuge. Surveillance was begun by agents and refuge officers. On July 8,  Hines and refuge officers Ingram, Gavin Gensmer and Julius Loflin arrested one person who was observed tending marijuana plants; a second person fled the scene on foot after assaulting   Hines, but was arrested about a week later by FWS and DEA agents and state and county officers. Charges of manufacturing marijuana and assault on a federal officer were filed in U.S. District Court. On October 28, Gerald Thomas Hall was sentenced to five years in prison. The second defendant, Rex E. Walters, died of natural causes the following day.

Region 4 agents and refuge officers were also involved in a number of other significant marijuana cultivation operations on FWS lands last summer. Three of these resulted in the filing of federal charges for marijuana manufacture. As a result, a regional drug enforcement team composed of officers and refuge officers has been formed. They have received specialized training and should be prepared for deployment during the coming summer.

Bald Eagle Shooting Conviction

On January 12, 1994, Clifford J. Mitchell, 45, of Pleasant Point, Maine, became the first person in that state to ever receive a jail sentence for shooting an eagle. Mitchell was sentenced to serve three months in jail for shooting an immature, female bald eagle in November of 1991. Mitchell pleaded guilty to the charge last November under a plea agreement. "I was drunk when I shot it," he told the judge at that time. "I shouldn't have done it, since it's a sacred bird. I've had bad luck ever since." Mitchell shot the bird as it landed in a tree near a highway. He pulled into an opening off the road, and, as his companions looked on, he shot and killed the eagle with a .270 caliber rifle.

An informant later led Passamaquoddy tribal rangers to the dead bird, found near some parts of a dead moose it was apparently going to feed upon. Prosecutor Elizabeth Woodcock told the Bangor Daily News that the case was "a good example of the public working with tribal rangers and federal law enforcement agents to prosecute what otherwise would be an extremely difficult case."  Richard Stott was also quoted in the paper: "You're losing adult birds, you're losing females, so the illegal shooting does have an impact on the population. Even though there's a large population in Maine, the number of fledglings still falls below the level to take the eagle off the endangered species list." The dead bird was about six months old and had a five-foot wingspan. The carcass will be sent to the National Eagle Depository in Ashland, Oregon, where it will be used to fill requests from Native Americans who apply for eagle feathers for use in religious ceremonies.

Duck Dinner Provider Convicted

Last December, Joseph Alameda, 53, of Clarksburg, California, was fined $10,000 and ordered to spend six months in federal custody for supplying the main course at the Woodland Elks Lodge's annual duck dinner. A jury convicted Alameda of supplying ducks for the lodge's 1990 dinner, but the AUSA's trial brief indicated that Alameda stocked the event from 1984 through 1992. Laurence Peterson, 69, the dinner's organizer, paid Alameda about $11,000 for more than 1,000 ducks between 1988 and 1993. Alameda typically provided him between 200 and 300 ducks per year. Peterson was fined $5,000 and placed on a year's probation. He also testified against Alameda at the latter's trial in September. District Judge Garland Burrell imposed a sentence of five years' probation on Alameda, six of which must be spent in a halfway house in Sacramento. The judge also ordered that Alameda not hunt or be in the company of any hunter during the probationary period. Alameda's comment on his own actions were apropos: "Selling those ducks was the stupidest thing I ever did."  Kevin Ellis conducted the investigation that led to Alameda's conviction.

Trophy Bighorn Sheep Smuggling

Conviction Robert Coleman of West Bloomfield, Michigan, was assessed fines and penalties totaling $200,000 and sentenced to a year's probation after he plead guilty last fall to a two count criminal charge of violations of the Lacey Act for unlawfully importing a trophy desert bighorn sheep that he illegally shot and killed in Mexico in 1989. The investigation that led to the conviction was headed by  Timothy Santel. The first count charged that Coleman used a fraudulent document to import the illegal sheep hide from Mexico into the United States through Tucson. The second count charged that Coleman later had the horns and head of the sheep smuggled into the country, then had them shipped from Tucson to Michigan. Coleman was convicted in District Court in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Under the terms of the plea agreement, $180,000 of Coleman's fine will be deposited with the Fish and Wildlife Foundation in Washington, D.C. The foundation will in turn distribute the funds for desert bighorn sheep research in Sonora, Mexico, through a cooperative agreement between the United States and Mexico. A portion of the funds will also be used to purchase specialized law enforcement equipment for FWS to help enforce the Endangered Species Act.

Coleman killed the sheep after getting a fake permit from an Arizona agency that sets up hunts. He had earlier failed to get one of a handful of desert bighorn licenses the Mexican government auctions each year to the highest bidder. FWS got into the case when the Mexican government asked for help in tracking Coleman and the faked permit. Coleman is an insurance broker and member of Safari Club International. He had legally hunted Rocky Mountain, Dall and Stone bighorns, and told authorities that he was obsessed with getting the desert bighorn - the fourth trophy in the "grand slam" of bighorns.

Update on Operation Coastal Catch

In the last newsletter, we reported on "Operation Coastal Catch", in which agents and officers from FWS and other federal and state agencies conducted an undercover sting operation in Massachusetts and New Hampshire that lead to the arrests of two men for illegally taking about 2,000 "short" lobsters and 21 egg-bearing lobsters, then selling them to federal agents. On January 13, 1994, Martin Wilgo, who previously pleaded guilty to a seven-count indictment charging violations of the Lacey Act and conspiracy statutes, was sentenced in Federal District Court in Concord, New Hampshire, to home detention for four months (and required to wear an electronic monitoring device), 100 hours of community service, and a $200 special assessment. His seized lobster boat was forfeited to the state of Massachusetts. Two weeks later, his brother, Henry Wilgo, who also pleaded guilty to the same seven counts, was sentenced to eight months home detention (and required to wear an electronic monitoring device), restitution in the amount of $3,960, and a special assessment of $350. Donald and Rena Bettencourt, who sold some of the lobsters from their pub in Salem, Massachusetts, were sentenced on charges of selling illegal lobsters in District Court in that community on January 13. Each was fined $3,425.

Legislative Proposals

Several legislative proposals of interest to FWS officers are making their way through the Department of Interior. officer's Neill Hartman and Ed Spoon, who recently completed assignments in the Office of Legislative Services as part of the upper level management development program, helped to bring these proposals along. The Fish and Wildlife Law Enforcement Clarification Act of 1993 closely resembles legislation introduced in 1992 by Congressman Lindsey Thomas (D- GA). The Thomas bill passed both Houses, but died at the eleventh hour due to an amendment that was added in the Senate. Neill fine-tuned the Thomas bill, working closely with the Department of Justice. In its present form, the act would authorize FWS officers, while performing their normal FWS or conservation law enforcement duties, to: 1) make an arrest for any federal felony, or any federal misdemeanor, committed in their presence or view; 2) investigate any federal offense discovered during the course of normal work, if the primary agency was unavailable or if that agency requested it; 3) carry firearms; 4) execute and serve any federal order, warrant, subpoena, summons, or other process; 5) administer to or take from any person an oath, affirmation or affidavit; 6) cooperate with any state or political subdivision in the enforcement of its laws; and 7)perform any other law enforcement duty specified by the Secretary of Interior.

These authorities would apply both on and off FWS lands. Proposed amendments to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) would accomplish a number of changes: a) illegal birds would be forfeited upon payment of collateral; b) permit applications and renewal fees would be returned to law enforcement to help pay for the permit program instead of going into the general treasury; c) violators could be assessed the costs associated with evidence storage and preservation; d) fees could be charged for inspections associated with migratory bird permits or import/export activity; and e) revenues from MBTA forfeitures of collateral would go directly into the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund, a fund created by the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. These funds average $650,000 annually.

Lastly, FWS law enforcement officers working on Palau, aka the Trust Territory of the Pacific Island, would be assured of a court of competent jurisdiction for cases made there. At present, applications for search warrants and prosecutions must be filed in the District of Columbia. The Palau proposal amends the ESA, MBTA, Lacey Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act to standardize the definition of "State, Territory or district" to clearly include the western Pacific territories, places Palau within the Judicial District of Guam, and makes it clear that the Northern Mariana Islands are a separate judicial district. These changes are necessary for the Service to live up to its responsibilities under endangered species and other agreements. During his stint in Legislative Services in April-May, 1993, Neill obtained Acting Director Smith's signature on the Clarification Act. He drafted the MBTA proposals and obtained Service approval for them.

Ed Spoon served in Legislative Services in September-October, 1993. During his tour, Ed moved the four proposals further along. On October 15, Ed, Chief John Doggett, SAC Frank Shoemaker and Legislative Specialist Trish Aspland brief Director Beattie. She gave her strong support to all four initiatives. At press time, the Clarification Act, MBTA amendments, and Palau proposal were circulating through the Department for surnaming by all Interior bureaus. After this Department-wide review, they go to OMB; when they clear OMB, they will be sent to Speaker of the House Tom Foley with a request that they be introduced and enacted. Trish Aspland handles law enforcement issues for the Office of Legislative Services.

Note to Patch Collectors

The following appeared in the January issue of Police magazine and is being passed on to you for your info: "Attention patch collectors: You are in danger of losing all those police patches you've spent years collecting. Legislation sponsored by Rep. Dick Zimmer, R-NJ, is pending that would make it illegal to possess, collect or mail law enforcement insignia. The stated intent of the bill is to control the crime of impersonating a law enforcement officer. "If you are a collector or just want to stop these legislators from taking away more of our rights, write your representative. Ask them to pursue other ways of controlling the crime instead of bringing a long-standing hobby to an end. "To write to the sponsor of this bill, address correspondence to: The Honorable Dick Zimmer, U.S. House of Representatives, 510 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515-3012."

Top, News, Home
This page last revised 5/ 29/97