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Title: Famed Guitar Maker Raided by Federal Agents
Source:
NY Times Arts Beat
URL Source: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2 ... aker-raided-by-federal-agents/
Published: Aug 31, 2011
Author: JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR.
Post Date: 2011-08-31 15:39:05 by Get Outta Dodge!
Keywords: Jack, Booted, Thugs
Views: 612
Comments: 1
Tracing what they say is an illegal shipment of Indian hardwood, federal agents raided offices and factories belonging to Gibson Guitar Corporation last week for the second time in two years, seizing documents, computer hard drives, pallets of wood, guitars and tools. Henry E. Juszkiewicz, Gibson’s chief executive and part-owner, accused the federal government of bullying the famed guitar maker. He said the agents had misread Indian laws regarding the export of ebony and rosewood fingerboards. “It’s baloney,” he said. “It seems to me they are gunning for us. They are just looking for us to make a mistake or do something wrong.” Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said the raid was part of an investigation into possible violations of the Lacey Act, which makes it unlawful to import wood that was exported illegally under another country’s laws. He would not comment on the details of the investigation, except to say it was continuing. The raid on Aug. 24 disrupted production at two Gibson factories and an Epiphone plant in Nashville, wreaking havoc with supply lines and crimping production, Mr. Juszkiewicz said. The plants produce hundreds of guitars a day, and rosewood and ebony fingerboards, mostly imported from India, are essential components. A privately held company, Gibson is one of the largest guitar makers in the world, whose instrument is woven into the history of popular music in America. Among the iconic instruments its luthiers have created are the Les Paul electric guitar and the acoustic-electric dreadnought John Lennon strummed. They also make banjos, mandolins and dobros, as well as pianos under the Baldwin name and less expensive guitars under the Epiphone brand. It was not the first time the federal government scrutinized the woods being used at Gibson plants. In 2009, more than a dozen agents with automatic weapons burst into a Gibson factory in Nashville and seized pallets of ebony fingerboards from Madagascar. Since then, the company has been fighting the seizure in court, arguing that the wood was exported legally from that African country. No one has been charged with criminal wrongdoing in connection with that raid. The investigation that led to the searches last week began when a customs official intercepted an air shipment of 1,250 ebony fingerboards in Dallas on June 22, according to an affidavit filed in support of the search warrant. The shipment was mislabeled as “finished parts of musical instruments,” which are legal to export, the affidavit said. The paperwork with the shipment did not say the wood was going to Gibson Guitar Corporation in Nashville. Agents from the Fish and Wildlife Service interviewed officials at a Canadian import company listed on a manifest and a storage company in Nashville where the wood was to be warehoused. They determined that the Gibson factories were the final destination. The affidavit maintains that unfinished fingerboard blanks that are more than a centimeter thick cannot be exported under Indian law; only finished pieces of veneer, about half as thick can be exported. The intent of the law is to protect woodworking jobs in India. But Mr. Juszkiewicz disputes this interpretation of the Indian statutes and the international tariff code. Gibson has been importing fingerboards from India for more than 17 years, he said, without any objections from the Indian government. He added that as recently as July the company’s agents in India received a ruling from Indian trade officials stating that the fingerboards could be exported. Many American guitar makers use fingerboards from India, and a ban on their import could affect other manufacturers here, he said. Even if Gibson has imported goods that could not legally leave India, Mr. Juszkiewicz said, the raid by the Fish and Wildlife agents was heavy-handed. “They are coming in with guns, and they have treated us like drug people,” he said. “It’s not appropriate. If you want to sue us, or indict us, O.K., but to come in with weapons and close the factories — they have done it twice — that’s inappropriate.”
Poster Comment: Eric Holder has good reason for taking this extraordinary action. Word on the street is . . . this company donated to republicans.
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#1. To: Get Outta Dodge! (#0)
Time for a Writ of Mandamus.
To:Skippy, toe-jam, old man Fred Alzheimers Mertz, _jim, loonymom/ming, e-type-jackoff, goober56, Wrek, calcon, dummy DwarF, continental op, Biff, gobsheit and meguro From: Capitalist Eric Message: You're SOCIALIST morons. ESAD. 
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