NASHVILLE (AP) – Media comments by Gibson Guitar's outspoken CEO are being quoted in legal filings related to seized wood headed for the company's factories.
Gibson head Henry Juszkiewicz has publicly blasted the seizure and raids on facilities in Memphis and Nashville as examples of the federal government risking U.S. jobs with over-zealous regulation. The enforcement activities have also drawn the ire of Republicans and tea party groups.
According to an affidavit by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent Kevin Seiler filed in federal court this week, wood shipped through a broker was mislabeled to circumvent India's export ban on unfinished ebony and rosewood, in violation of the federal Lacey Act, which bans the import of illegal wildlife, plants and wood.
"The shipment paperwork ... concealed the true nature of the import and fraudulently presented as shipment that would be legal to export from India, even though it clearly was not a legally exported or imported shipment," Seiler wrote.
The affidavit alleges press statements made by Juszkiewicz indicate he was aware that his company's "order for fingerboard blanks was an order for contraband ebony wood."
Seiler claimed Juszkiewicz's comments criticizing Indian and American law on the matter indicate Gibson "understands the purpose of the Lacey Act."
A Gibson spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the affidavit.
The filing quotes Juszkiewicz as saying that the 2008 bill to add illegal wood products to the Lacey Act was introduced at the behest of lumber unions seeking to make American wood more competitive.
"That's not a national objective ... That's not mom and apple pie," the affidavit quotes Juszkiewicz as saying.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the top Republican sponsor of the Lacey Act amendment, has said he is considering changes to the law to ensure instrument makers can import can obtain the wood they need. But other guitar makers, like El Cajon, Calif.-based Taylor Guitars, have said the law doesn't hurt their ability to make instruments.
Gibson was the subject of a similar raid in 2009 over ebony imported from Madagascar through a German firm called Theodor Nagel GmbH. Both have been fighting that seizure in federal court, but federal prosecutors obtained a hold on those proceedings while pursuing the "investigation and the prosecution of a related criminal investigation."
Details of that investigation have been filed under seal.
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