Here's my post that appeared on "Naked Capitalism"

---The government treats the average citizen very differently than it does BP---

"Equal protection" under the law is the best safeguard that the average person enjoys. Remove the law and you remove the protection, and it is every man for himself, and the individual is irrelevant.
--Jesse

The federal government has two very distinct faces it shows the world. There’s the face it shows the BPs, Goldman Sachs and Halliburtons of the world, and then there’s the face it shows those lacking political power----small and medium businesses and everyday Americans. I recently got a peak at the face the federal government shows ordinary Americans, and it certainly isn’t pretty.

My adventure started last March when I purchased 16 small antique ivory carvings and some other antiques at a public auction house in Portugal. Before buying the ivory objects, and because ivory is covered under the Endangered Species Act and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), I dutifully read and complied with all the laws, regulations and treaties that govern the export and import of antique ivory. I obtained the appropriate CITES permits from the Portuguese government to legally export the pieces (no import permit is required by the U.S.), and they left Portugal without a hitch.

When the carvings reached the port in Houston, Texas, however, my problems began. The CITES permit is required to be attached to the outside of the shipping container, and this seems to be like waving a red flag in front of a bull to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (The Fish and Wildlife Service, along with MMS, are divisions of the Department of the Interior). Before the customs broker could even prepare and submit the required customs declaration, Fish and Wildlife inspector De’Marion McKinney had already inspected the containers and was on the phone telling my customs broker that the shipment must be returned to Portugal. I called McKinney and her objections were that 1) she didn’t like the way the Portuguese government had done the CITES permit and 2) she had found a small antique wooden cross in the shipment that had mother of pearl encrustations. I felt her objections to the Portuguese CITES permit were either unjustified or trivial, and mother of pearl is not an endangered species.

I asked McKinney if I could just ship the ivory and the cross back, allowing the other articles in the shipment to pass, since they were wooden or glass objects and clearly not endangered species. She refused, and so I refused to ship the containers back. To ship the containers back to Portugal and then reship them again to the U.S. would set me back something like $1000 or $1200, and to what end? There is no guarantee that when they made their return trip to the U.S. that the CITES permits would be any more to McKinney’s liking.

Fish and Wildlife immediately seized the shipment, and not just the disputed ivory carvings, but the entire shipment.

I have prepared a list, which can be seen at www.fixgov.blogspot.com , which enumerates and discusses in some detail the laws, regulations, treaties and constitutional rights which I believe Fish and Wildlife violated in order to seize my property. Perhaps the most egregious violation is that antique ivory, which statutorily is defined as being 100 years old or older, falls outside the jurisdiction of the Fish and Wildlife service. And then there’s the issue of due process. U.S. laws and regulations set out in great detail the procedures Fish & Wildlife and the Solicitor must follow in one of these seizure cases. They didn’t do any of that.

A recent article in the New York Times reports how Fish and Wildlife all but gave carte Blanche to deepwater drillers like BP to operate in the Gulf of Mexico. Here's how the New York Times reporter put it:

The federal agency [Fish and Wildlife Service] charged with protecting endangered species like the brown pelican and the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle signed off on the Minerals Management Service’s conclusion that deepwater drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico posed no significant risk to wildlife, despite evidence that a spill of even moderate size could be disastrous, according to federal documents.

Now contrast that to how Fish and Wildlife treated me. And then consider what the bottom line is. For while the Interior Department is off on these bunny trails chasing 300 year-old ivory pieces, BP operates with impunity.

I have two options to fight the seizure, either through an administrative process with the Solicitor (of the Interior Department) or in federal court. I am moving to have the case heard in federal Court, because after what’s happened, why would I trust anyone who works for the U.S. Department of the Interior?

Letter of complaint to the Regional Solicitor of the Department of the Interior

Glenn Stehle
Box 2551
Midland, TX 79702

August 10, 2010

Department of the Interior
Lynn Johnson
Regional Solicitor for the Southwest Region
505 Marquette Ave., Suite 1800
Albuquerque, NM 87102

Dear Solicitor Johnson,

I’m trying to make some sense of your repeated abdication of responsibilities under the Federal Code of Regulations Title 50 Part 12, and the fact that you continue to operate in violation of various sections of those regulations. It leads me to believe that you are colluding in what I suspect to be a seizure and forfeiture scam that the Southern District of Texas of the US Fish and Wildlife Service is operating. Whatever the case may be, I have come to the conclusion that there is no way I am going to receive a fair and impartial hearing from anyone within the Department of the Interior, including you.

On July 23, 2010 I sent a fax to your office requesting that you mail me the necessary forms as set out in §12.23(b)(2) so that I could file a claim and bond and have my case moved to Federal Court. But instead of providing those forms, you forwarded my request to the Fish and Wildlife office in Houston and I received the attached email from Fish and Wildlife Special Agent Kevin L. Seiler.

I called Agent Seiler yesterday, and what the conversation boiled down to was a continuation of a barrage of false and unsubstantiated allegations that began upon my very first encounter with Fish and Wildlife. Of the numerous allegations Agent Seiler made yesterday, three allegations stand out, two of which I am almost certain are false, and the third of which I am 100% sure is false.

First, Agent Seiler claimed that the ivory pieces had been submitted to a lab and the lab tests showed that some of the pieces were not Elephant Ivory but Hippopotamus Ivory. I have no knowledge as to exactly what sort of tests would be needed to determine the species of a specimen, but it would seem to me that some sort of DNA or protein marker testing would be in order--testing that is expensive and time consuming. I find it highly unlikely that Fish and Wildlife would have already spent the time and money to perform these tests on the seized specimens at this point in time.

Second, Agent Seiler alleged that the CITES permits issued by the Portuguese government are fraudulent. I have copies of the CITES permits, and each has the seal, name and initial of the Portuguese government agent who issued the permits. I suppose it would be a simple matter of contacting Fernanda Graca Gordo, the Portuguese agent, to confirm that she indeed did issue the permits. But the question remains: What evidence is Agent Seiler operating on to make such an outrageous allegation?

Third, Agent Seiler accused me of importing the items into the United States and then, since I live most of the year in Mexico, of carrying the items via land transport to Mexico for the purpose of resale. He alleged that I was importing these items for commercial purposes, that I was not a collector, and that I did not have my private collection in storage in the United States as I had claimed. This allegation is absolutely false, and again totally unsubstantiated. Again I ask: What evidence does Agent Seiler have to make such an outrageous allegation?

I was a working class kid who for some reason took to collecting art at a very young age. I think I bought my first painting at the age of 16 or 17. Since then it has been my life’s passion. Over my lifetime, I have amassed quite an art collection, much of which, beginning about 35 years ago, I have given away. A list of all the institutions to which I have made art donations over the past 35 years is attached. I think the total value of donated art, at the time of the gifts, amounts to something like $500,000. Of course most of these gifts have appreciated greatly over the decades, and the current value would be several times that.

What remains of my collection upon my death is willed to the University of Texas at El Paso, as is the balance of my estate to establish a scholarship fund. The University of Texas at El Paso already has on permanent loan a part of my collection. Another part is at an apartment that I share with my brother, and another smaller part is in Mexico.

But this allegation of Agent Seiler begs another question, and that is why, if I wanted these items in Mexico, wouldn’t I just import them directly into Mexico? His accusation makes no sense whatsoever, just like the numerous other allegations leveled against me by Fish and Wildlife make no sense whatsoever.

So what is the motive for making all these false and unsubstantiated accusations and allegations?

Several counties and municipalities in Texas have been operating seizure and forfeiture scams. These have prompted a number of complaints, lawsuits and investigations by the U.S. Justice Department, and these illegal shakedowns have received considerable press attention. One of the lawsuits is Morrow, et al. v. Washington, et al., in which the plaintiffs' first amended complaint alleges:

Defendants are all local law enforcement officials in and around the City of Tenaha, Shelby County, Texas and the Mayor of Tenaha. However, they have developed an illegal “stop and seize” practice of targeting, stopping, detaining, searching, and often seizing property from, apparently non-white citizens and those traveling with non-white citizens, including the Plaintiffs and members of the proposed class who travel in, through, or near Tenaha. The Defendants undertake this practice without legal justification, in violation of the citizens’ rights, not for any legitimate law enforcement purpose but to enrich their offices and perhaps themselves, by seizing and converting cash and other valuable personal property they can find during the course of the illegal stop and seize practice.

The complaint was later amended to add the Shelby County District Attorney.

I have created a blog www.fixgov.blogspot.com where I have set out and discuss in detail the laws, regulations and provisions of the U.S. Constitution that you and Fish and Wildlife have violated. They are numerous.

So this begs the question: Why would you and the Fish and Wildlife agents so willingly and blatantly violate so many laws and regulations and make so many false and unsubstantiated accusations? The only narrative that I can come up with that makes any sense is that you are engaging in the same sort of seizure and forfeiture scam as alleged in Morrow, et al. v. Washington, et al.

When I get this case into Federal Court, hopefully in the discovery phase of the trial I can learn the identity of those who have forfeited antique ivory pieces over the past five years or so, who those pieces were sold to and for how much. With that information I can then decide if I want to proceed with legal action against you and the agents and inspectors in the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Sincerely Yours,


Glenn Stehle

cc: Secretary of the Department of the Interior Ken Salazar
cc: Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior David J. Hayes
cc: Assistant Secretary Fish and Wildlife and Parks Tom Strickland
cc: Solicitor of the Department of the Interior Senior Counselor Hilary Tompkins
cc: Department of the Interior Ethics Department
cc: Acting Director of Fish and Wildlife Service Rowan Gould
cc: Deputy Director of Fish and Wildlife Daniel M. Ashe
cc: Assistant Director for Endangered Species for Fish and Wildlife Service Gary Frazer
cc: Chief, Office of Law Enforcement for Fish and Wildlife Service Benito A. Perez
cc: Director of Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory Ken Goddard
cc: All members of the U.S. Senate
cc: All members of the U.S. House of Representatives, with additional letters, phone calls and follow-up to members of the Committee on Natural Resources with special emphasis on the Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife




Institutions Which Have Received Donations of Art Work
from Glenn Stehle Over Past 35 Years

Museum of the Southwest, Midland, Texas
Scott & White Hospital, Temple, Texas
Blumenschein Museum, Taos, New Mexico
Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana
San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas
West Texas A&M University, Canyon, Texas
Wesleylan College, Mount Pleasant, Iowa
Eureka College, Eureka, Illinois
University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas
The University of New Mexico Harwood Museum, Taos, New Mexico


Email Received from Agent Kevin L. Seiler on August 2, 2010

Mr. Stehle,

I have received your request for a copy of the civil claim form, which in this case would circumvent the normal process of submitting a petition for remission of the property to the Regional Solicitor. The process of filing for a civil claim is normally considered by a claimant after completing the petition for remission process. The filing of a civil claim will require your appearance in the Federal District Courthouse in Houston, Texas and it is highly recommended you secure legal counsel before filing a civil claim through the District Court. Please consider this and inform me of how you would like to proceed.

Also please be advised that at this time the entire import, which contains wildlife, has been refused customs clearance. This means the entire shipment has been refused entry and this is not restricted to only specific wildlife items contained within the shipment. In addition, the entire shipment is currently being held as evidence pending further investigation upon referral from the inspector. I expect the case file will be referred within the next 30 days. Please keep in mind the civil claims process will not affect any criminal forfeiture actions taken for violations under which the import/shipment was seized.

If you are interested in resolving these violations quickly with minimum enforcement actions, and are willing to come into compliance for all future imports, I would be happy to discuss the matter with you.

V/R

Kevin L. Seiler
Special Agent
US Fish and Wildlife Service
16639 W Hardy Rd
Houston, TX 77060
Office: 281-876-1520
Fax: 281-876-9319 =