Dick Perrin slapped on the wrist

[xroads]

Dick Perrin today was found guilty of smuggling wildlife from Floriday to Michigan.

He got a slap on the wrist of $15,000, and loss of his van.

I am sure he made much much more then that in the illegal harvesting, transporting, and selling of illegal fish & coral.

I was hoping the gov't would make an example of him, instead of encouraging others.

I can hear people now, hey lets start going to Florida, if we get caught, pay a little fine and probation.

Makes me sick!

[d2mini]

Holy moly, that's all he got after all that?! :facepalm:

I thought for sure they were going to throw the :reading: at him.

[xtm]

While $15K is considered "small" amount, this is still a huge sum compared to the Philippines, where they fine you P2,000 to P20,000 (a whopping $44 dollars to 400 dollars) for illegally exporting corals. (source (http://havehest.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/illegal-trade-in-turtles-and-corals-rampant-in-indonesia/)) That's why the big time smugglers just laugh it off, pay the fine and continue smuggling. They should increase the fine and jail time for these crimes.

[saf1]

Is it different than anything else? U.S. jails are over crowded for many reasons. Right, wrong, no one was killed in the process. The hard part is trying to be analytically correct in assessing the damage he may or may not have caused. Then correlate that to what large companies do, and then yet again to major accidents such has ships busting up on a reef.

Maybe they could have been more creative, maybe not. At the end of the day what is the total oceanic surface 70 - 80%? We really think this guy caused a problem compared to say Exxon's captain wrecking a ship and spilling multi-million gallons of oil? Look up his punitive damage then raise this again.

[Greatreefer]

okay, this is going to sound like a totally dumb question but, what kinds of "wild life" do these types of people smuggle form Florida? I would be curious to see what kinds of animals are listed on the " black animal market".
Totally off topic though, I did find a website that lets you legally buy exotic animals like zebras, monkeys and all other kinds of crazy animals. The catch? You have to have an exotic animal license and several thousand dollars.