A United States man has been sentenced to seven months in federal jail adopted by a yr of house confinement for his half in a scheme to smuggle illegally harvested Florida turtles to China, Japan and different locations.
Michael Van Nostrand, 55, of Davie, Florida was sentenced Tuesday in Miami federal courtroom, in accordance with courtroom data.
He pleaded responsible in November to conspiring to illegally visitors wildlife.
Van Nostrand additionally should pay $100,000 USD to a congressionally approved fund that pays for the care, therapy and rehabilitation of wildlife.
Van Nostrand's firm, Strictly Reptiles Inc., should pay $150,000 USD to the identical fund.
In response to courtroom paperwork, Van Nostrand and others established a community of "collectors" who searched the Florida wilds for sure freshwater turtle specimens, together with the three-stripe mud turtle, from April 2017 via April 2019.
The collectors and Van Nostrand then falsely labeled the turtles as having been bred in captivity, fairly than caught within the wild, prosecutors stated.
Florida banned the business catch of turtles in 2009. Prosecutors famous in courtroom filings that vital stress is being positioned on native species, particularly turtles and tortoises, all through the USA to fulfill the black market pet commerce and that the U.S. is going through the specter of some species turning into extinct within the wild due to unlawful poaching actions.
Van Nostrand gained notoriety via "The Lizard King," a 2008 bestseller that described a U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent's yearslong investigation of his enterprise.
He was finally sentenced to eight months in jail in 1998 for getting smuggled Argentine boas, tegu lizards and different protected wildlife, and required to pay $250,000 USD to the World Wildlife Fund.