Artist gets jail time, fine in ivory case

A Massachusetts scrimshaw artist was given weekend jail time and fined $50,000 Monday for smuggling ivory. Charles Manghis must serve 15 weekends in a county jail and was placed on probation for two years, The Boston Globe reported. Prosecutors said he helped fuel illegal poaching of animals for their ivory by purchasing it from the black market. Manghis' attorney had contended the Nantucket man is no smuggler, just an artist who uses ivory. "He is not a smuggler by trade; he's not a reseller or a dealer of ivory," defense attorney Max Stern said at a hearing last week. "He has obtained ivory for art and he uses it as his medium." But U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said the sentence reflected her attempt to balance Manghis' standing in the community and commitment to his family with his illegal purchases, the Globe said. Gertner also said she found that Manghis lied during parts of his testimony in trial. "If we don't enforce these rules, the law will be upended," Gertner said. "Being a fabulous artist, being a well respected artist … can't excuse the running afoul of these regulations." Importing sperm whale ivory was banned by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Prosecutors said Manghis clearly violated the law. "There's a reason we don't hunt the whales the same way, we don't use the products the same way -- people don't live that way anymore," Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadine Pellegrini said after Manghis' conviction. The conservation group Care for the Wild International said the United States is the second-largest ivory market in the world, behind China. "Stop the demand for it because that's what keeps the species safe," Pellegrini said. Manghis was convicted of conspiracy, six counts of smuggling and two counts of making false statements regarding the purchase of ivory. Earlier this year, a judge ordered the deportation of a Ukrainian man said to be Manghis' ivory importer.