 | mobile - desktop |
|
| mobile - desktop |
|
 |
 3 months for $50.00 |
News & Events:
|
Posted by Wes von Papineäu on January 14, 2000 at 20:34:41:
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (California) 14 January 00 Former San Diego Zoo curator pleads guilty to scheme
San Diego (AP) -- The San Diego Zoo's former curator of reptiles faces no more than a month in a halfway house when he is sentenced today on federal charges of trafficking rare and endangered reptiles.
But the case of Earl Thomas Schultz highlights the specialized business of buying and selling zoo animals and how zoos, like San Diego's, can get drawn into schemes of unethical curators, prosecutors said.
"People like Schultz are in positions of trust, and he betrayed the best interests of the San Diego Zoo,'' said Elinor Coburn, a special assistant U.S. attorney in Washington and one of the case prosecutors. ``It is devastating when people feel they can't trust a public institution.''
Schultz, 65, retired with full benefits last summer after he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and theft for trafficking in rare and endangered reptiles.
The case arose from a federal investigation into two Floridians, Tom Crutchfield and Adam Smith. Crutchfield had supplied the San Diego Zoo with 300 animals from 1985 until 1992, when he was convicted of smuggling endangered animals into the United States.
Zoo officials said they had severed ties with Crutchfield in 1992, but among the documents seized from the zoo in the investigation of Schultz was a blanket purchase order for reptiles signed by Jean M. Saxon, the zoo's purchasing agent.
It covers Jan. 1, 1993, through Dec. 31, 1994; is made out to Tom Crutchfield's Reptile Enterprises, P.O. Box 1145, Bushnell, Fla.; and is dated Nov. 10, 1992, less than five months after zoo officials said they would no longer deal with him.
Zoo officials, in response to The San Diego Union-Tribune's December article about the case, said it was "standard operating procedure'' to renew blanket purchase agreements, but that no orders were actually placed with Crutchfield.
"The zoo has never authorized anyone to deal with a convicted felon,'' zoo spokesman Ted Molter said.
But Schultz continued his involvement with Crutchfield, however, according to a sentencing memorandum prepared by prosecutors in the case. Only this time Schultz used his zoo position to supply Crutchfield with exotic animals for resale and for breeding, prosecutors said.
In buying and selling animals for the zoo, Schultz dealt with Tom Crutchfield's Reptile Enterprises in Lake Panasoffkee, Fla. But the transactions were laundered through Smith and Tropical Fauna Inc., also of Lake Panasoffkee, prosecutors said.
Tropical Fauna was a front for Crutchfield to get around the loss of his own import license after his conviction, and was operated by Tom Crutchfield's Reptile Enterprises, Smith told investigators.
But the zoo apparently missed the connection. An Aug. 4, 1995, letter from Don Boyer, the zoo's animal care manager for reptiles and amphibians, regarding a shipment of 24 snakes to Smith was addressed to Reptile Enterprises, P.O. Box 1145, Bushnell, Fla., the same mailing address of Tom Crutchfield's Reptile Enterprises.
Crutchfield was convicted again in 1997, with Smith, of illegal reptile smuggling.
In Schultz's case, prosecutors said he padded his expenses, some of them part of a two-way flow of animals between the San Diego Zoo and the Florida dealers, who paid him kickbacks for exotic animals they could sell on the black market.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents seized documents and computer records from the zoo in November. While they were investigating Schultz and his assistant, agents said the case raised questions about whether there is an adequate system of oversight and accountability at the zoo.
The American Zoo and Aquarium Association is reviewing the case to determine whether the association's code of ethics was violated.
The dealings also are under investigation by Kurt Benirschke, president of the Zoological Society of San Diego, which operates both the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park.
Prosecutors said none of the zoo's acquisitions were illegal, but documentation regarding the animals' origins -- whether taken from the wild or captive-bred -- was lacking in a number of cases.
Under terms of his plea agreement, Schultz is expected to receive one month's confinement in a halfway house, five years' probation and 100 hours of community service. Without the agreement, he faced five years in prison and a $500,000 fine.
He will also have to pay restitution. Prosecutors place the zoo's losses at more than $100,000, which Schultz dispute.
