bflr
Gibson’s CEO Henry E. Juszkiewicz is a Republican donor. But the CEO of C.F. Martin & Company — one of Gibson’s main competitors and another user of the “East Indian Rosewood” — is a big Democratic donor. It's the political donations, stupid.
I'd like to know how, if they don't have the money to deport illegal aliens, they can come up with money to prosecute American citizens.
Later
Of course, his being a Republican and a contributor to the GOP had NOTHING to do with being targeted by the DOJ ....just like all those profitable GM dealerships that were owned by Republicans and were shut down.
Time for Issa to march that sorry sack of s**t of an Attorney General back to the Hill for the grand opening of another can of Wupa**.
Misleading. The federal customs case, U.S. v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms, Case No. 3:10 CV 00747, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee over a year ago.
I think the government's case against Gibson for the East Indian Rosewood fingerboard blanks is silly.
I've read the affidavit of Rayfield, as well as the affidavits, search warrant, complaint, answer, and motions in the current civil case (which was recently sealed in preparation of criminal charges after the Dallas airport and Canadian shipments situation).
It doesn't seem like a good summation.
As I mentioned, when the article says "no formal charges have been filed," it ignores the fact that you can have civil charges without criminal charges. The civil action was brought as an in rem customs action over a year ago.
Nothing in Rayfield's affidavit talks about "it specifies labor content levels for wood thicker than 6 millimeters that is exported from India." The 6mm is only important because wood under 6mm in thickness (veneer) has a different coding under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of India and the U.S.
The article also talks about Rayfield "concluding that Gibson's use of these woods violated Indian law." He never does that. He concludes that Gibson's import of the woods, not the use, was illegal. I think that was a silly conclusion, because it's clear to me as a four-decade guitar collector that India has not enforced its HTS. However, the article is not correct when it states that Rayfield concluded that Gibson's "use" of the wood violated Indian law.
It's also hard to discuss Rayfield's affidavit and these raids at all without mentioning the Dallas airport, Luthier Mercantile and the Red Arrow Delivery Service warehouse. While I still think the government's position in this case is wrong, Gibson looks suspicious because this shipment in Rayfield's affidavit (described in the summation) came into Dallas without a Lacey Act declaration, in containers with inaccurate descriptions as to the contents, with a small California company listed as the ultimate consignee but instructions to ship the containers to a warehouse in Nashville, without Gibson's name on any paperwork. The California company admitted that Gibson was the ultimate consignee (even submitted paperwork to that effect), and it turned out that East Indian Rosewood had also come into the U.S from Canada and had been shipped to the same warehouse in Nashville listing the California company as the ultimate consignee (without Gibson's name on any of the paperwork), although the warehouse had an email from the company telling the warehouse that Gibson was the ultimate consignee.
I'm curious. How do you know this source is within the music products industry? I may have missed that in the summation.
ping