The Great Gibson Guitar Raid: Months Later, Still No Charges

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gonzo

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The Great Gibson Guitar Raid: Months Later, Still No Charges Filed

http://reason.com/blog/2012/02/23/the-great-gibson-guitar-raid-months-late

"They...come in with weapons, they seized a half-million dollars worth of property, they shut our factory down, and they have not charged us with anything," says Gibson Guitars CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, referring to the August 2011 raid on his Nashville and Memphis factories by agents from the Departments of Homeland Security and Fish & Wildlife.
 
yep - this is the SECOND time they did this. Still haven't been charged for the 2008 raid...Gibby is trying to sue them for the return of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of raw materials. Fender and Martin use the exact same materials but have not been raided. But then *they* are union shops. Hmmmmmmm
 
What they should be raided for is their lack of quality control and over priced products.
 
To me, this stinks of racketeering.

For some reason I keep thinking that some Fishing and Wildlife officer(s) must have tried to extort free guitar(s) out of Gibson and Gibson told him/them to f*ck off. Now he/they are using his/there legal authority to take revenge.

F*ck the police.
 
latest on Gibby-



"The Justice Department announced Monday that it has come to an agreement with Gibson Guitar Corp. that will resolve an investigation into whether the company used illegally harvested wood and ebony in its production process, a violation of the Lacey Act.

Under the agreement, Gibson will pay a $300,000 penalty, plus a $50,000 "community service payment" to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to help promote conservation of protected trees. Additionally, Gibson agreed to set up a compliance program to ensure it does not use illegally harvested products, and to forfeit its right to about $260,000 worth of wood and ebony seized in the investigation."- various AP reports
 
Hard to say if they actually did anything wrong, or if they simply found it cheaper to cut their losses rather than fight.

As I understand it, the Lacey Act is becoming more of an issue. Taylor Guitars just bought a company in Cameroon that logs and preps ebony. Compliance is a full-time job.
 
screamingdaisy said:
To me, this stinks of racketeering.

For some reason I keep thinking that some Fishing and Wildlife officer(s) must have tried to extort free guitar(s) out of Gibson and Gibson told him/them to f*ck off. Now he/they are using his/there legal authority to take revenge.

F*ck the police.

F*ck the Feds is more appropriate.

It looks like the FEDS just wanted cash. ALL OF THE CHARGES HAVE BEEN DROPPED in favor of Gibson paying the FEDS $300,000.

"We felt compelled to settle, as the costs of proving our case at trial would have cost millions of dollars and taken a very long time to resolve," Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz said in an Aug. 6 news release announcing the settlement. "This allows us to get back to the business of making guitars. An important part of the settlement is that we are getting back the materials seized in a second armed raid on our factories and we have formal acknowledgement that we can continue to source rosewood and ebony fingerboards from India, as we have done for many decades."

While this civil atrocity was taking place, Gibson raised their prices and substituted the high quality wood in their Les Paul Custom guitars with "replica paneling" for their fretboards. $4K for a Clone LPC. Nice.
 

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