Federal Case in Honolulu Casts Light On Traffic in Endangered Species

posted in: May 2004 | 0

A Honolulu man charged with violating federal and international laws barring trade in endangered species is scheduled to stand trial in U.S. District Court in Honolulu later this month. The case, says Leslie Osborne, the assistant U.S. attorney handling it, “is the first case of this type” that’s been brought in the 20 years Osborne has been working in Honolulu.

But Peter Wolff, the public defender representing the accused man, D.M. “Dusty” Gruver, claims that much of the evidence against his client was improperly seized during a search of Gruver’s Maunalani Heights home, where he also operated his business, Tribal Artifacts. Wolff has submitted motions to suppress evidence and dismiss most of the charges against Gruver.

Last December, Gruver and his brother, Jackson Muldoon of Oregon, were indicted on 11 counts alleging conspiracy to smuggle prohibited goods and violation of the federal Lacey Act, which prohibits trade in animals or parts of animals protected under the Endangered Species Act and the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species.

The case against them, as detailed in court documents, centers around the import and sale over the internet of artifacts made from animals protected by CITES. Among other things, Gruver is said to have sold or conspired to sell items made from ivory of the helmeted hornbill, a rare bird exploited for the ivory from its casque, hornbill skulls, tiger penises, tiger teeth, carved orangutan skulls, sun bear skulls, and carvings made from elephant ivory. Gruver also imported and sold artifacts made from human skulls, according to information contained in the affidavit of an enforcement officer. Grisly though that allegation is, it doesn’t constitute a violation of CITES or the Endangered Species Act.

Gruver’s brother, Muldoon, became involved, according to the indictment, when Gruver started having the shipments of banned goods from Borneo sent to Muldoon’s Oregon nursery. After Gruver’s activities came under scrutiny by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the indictment alleges, he would order a contact in Malaysia to ship boxes containing the contraband goods to his brother’s nursery, and would then send email messages to his brother with instructions as to their disposition.

A ‘Crackdown’

Three years before the criminal indictment, the Fish and Wildlife Service brought a civil case against Gruver, accusing him of importing hornbill ivory. That case, settled in August 2001, resulted in a fine of $500 and forfeiture of items in three separate shipments. In an email to an undercover agent two months later, Gruver spoke of the case: “I just finished up a three year hassle with the US Fish & Wildlife Service regarding the illegal importation of hornbill ivory on my part. It looked like I was facing prison for a while, but they settled for a fine that virtually crippled me. They are not [fooling] around with endangered species any more – I was told that trafficking in endangered species products is considered only slightly less important than gun and drugs smuggling. They are cracking down heavily, believe me. This, at the moment, does not include the mere possession of such items as objects in a collection. They are really looking for dealers, -aHEM! However, you should be aware that even possession of parts of endangered species is clearly and blatantly against the CITES law.”

In fact, Gruver’s problems with the Fish and Wildlife Service were ongoing. From 1999 through 2001, Gruver had email exchanges with enforcement officers from the service, based in Illinois, who employed the undercover name of Robert Quaid. One of the officers, Edward Grace, described the transactions with Gruver in an affidavit supporting a request for a warrant to search Gruver’s Honolulu house last year: “On December 18, 1999, Special Agent Donnie Grace, using the undercover name Robert Quaid, purchased one hornbill ivory ear weight from Tribal Artifacts via the online auction E-Bay for $528.00…. Agent Grace sent the hornbill ivory ear weight to the USFWS Forensics Laboratory for identification…. On February 7, 2000, a morphology examination report… confirmed that the hornbill ivory ear piece was carfed from the casque of a Great Helmeted Hornbill (Buceros vigil) which is afforded Appendix I protection by CITES. Based on this protection, commercial trade in this item is prohibited.”

A week later, Edward Grace’s affidavit continues, Rob Chestnut, corporate attorney for eBay, informed the service that eBay had cancelled four auctions that had been listed by Gruver “because they were categorized as inappropriate items.” The auctions, Chestnut told the service, were “for two tiger penises, and two Tantric ritual skull bowls.”

Donnie Grace purchased another hornbill ivory ear weight from Gruver on February 15, Edward Grace says, which lab tests once more confirmed was made from the casque of a Great Helmeted Hornbill. The next month, Gruver emailed “Robert Quaid,” saying he “had possibly the two best carved hornbill ear weights he had ever come across.” According to Edward Grace, “Gruver stated that he got the ear weights on his trip to Bangkok and that they had just arrived through ‘very convoluted means.'”

Beginning in May 2001, Gruver was facing civil penalties from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Once those were settled, the email exchanges with “Robert Quaid” resumed, with Edward Grace himself using the undercover name this time. Edward Grace writes: “On October 5, 2001, … I contacted Gruver by email to see if an Abelam woven adornment that was being advertised on Gruver’s web site was still for sale. Gruver replied back by email with several pictures at different angles of the piece. Based on my training and experience, the piece appears to have been made from a hornbill.” (The Abelam are a tribal people in New Guinea.)

Edward Grace purchased a rhinoceros bowl and hornbill earring from Gruver in October 2001. “Gruver responded to my purchase,” Grace writes, “by sending an email stating in part: ‘The rhino horn bowls – these are saved for me by my main dealer in Khatmandu…. I sweat bullets bringing them in – fortunately, they look like carved wood. Even though high on the list of banned materials, it can be effectively argued that these carved horn bowls are at least a century old, originating long before the CITES regulation [sic] were formulated.”

‘Purple Juice’ and Liquid Smoke

While an email Gruver sent to Quaid suggested he might be able to import some items legally because they were old enough to get around CITES regulations, a message he sent to his brother in June 1999 suggests Gruver may have artificially aged some of the imports and then used a bath of Liquid Smoke to disguise the smell: “the reason that I need that liquid smoke is that I engage in let’s say, ahhhhhhh, certain restorative techniques on numbers of tribal objects that I bring into the country. This is not supposed to be done, but if an item is OK, but does not have much of a ‘patina’ that everyone looks for and values, then I work on it until it does have a killer patina. Trouble is, the ‘secret materials and techniques’ that I use often leave a, ummmmm, ‘modern’ sort of smell, you see. And, often as not, that woodsmoke ‘TRIBAL’ – ‘REALLY AND TRULY GENUINE PRIMITIVE’ smell will make the sale, after the correct ‘look’ has already captivated the collector.”

An unspecified purple juice was another tool in Gruver’s toolbox. The indictment quotes an email Gruver sent in October 1999 to a contact in Malaysia, “J.T.,” that states, “I just sustained some very heavy losses in U.S. Customs. I still want to take the chance on the hornbill but only if you can do the following – stain everything with the purple juice and do not buff or polish. I know it will look enough like wood carvings to pass almost any inspection.”

Closing In

In February 2002, special agents from the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a search of Gruver’s home. There, the indictment states, they found items made from leopards, cloud leopard, and Asiatic black bear. It further states that in July 2003, Gruver imported five elephant ivory carvings from China without the required CITES documentation.

In October 2003, a federal grand jury handed up an indictment against Gruver and Muldoon, listing 12 counts of conspiracy and illegal importation. A month earlier, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Honolulu brought four misdemeanor charges against Robert Weisblut of Maryland, president of the International Ivory Society, in connection with the actions of Gruver and Muldoon. Assistant U.S. Attorney Osborne told Environment Hawai’i that Weisblut pleaded guilty on February 27, 2004 to a charge of causing the shipment of helmeted hornbill earweights. Sentencing is scheduled for June 15, Osborne said.

In December, a superseding indictment charged them with 11 counts – one of conspiracy to import illicit merchandise and to engage in the sale and purchase of such merchandise; and 10 counts of importing and selling items in contravention of the Endangered Species Act and CITES.

On April 8, U.S. District Judge Susan O. Mollway heard motions filed by Gruver’s attorney, Peter Wolff of the federal public defender’s office, to suppress evidence and to dismiss all counts except the conspiracy charge. Wolff is challenging the validity of the search warrant and all evidence obtained from it, including the email correspondence stored on Gruver’s computer.

Osborne said Mollway had asked “both sides to provide additional citations on limited issues,” oral arguments for which were scheduled for April 26, if Mollway determined there was a need for them.

If the motion to suppress evidence is granted, Osborne said, the federal prosecutors would still have the statements of the undercover agents, the items they purchased from Gruver and emails from him, the shipments seized by Customs, and the testimony of Weisblut against Gruver. The trial is tentatively scheduled to begin on May 18 at 9 a.m. in the courtroom of Judge Mollway.

— Patricia Tummons

Volume 14, Number 11 May 2004

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