The Orange County Register reports that two Garden Grove men, arrested for conspiring to smuggle song birds into the United States, have plead not guilty to all charges in federal court.

Sony Dong, 46, and Duc Le, 34, were arrested last month concluding an investigation that began back in December of 2008. At that time, Customs and Border Protection at Los Angeles International Airport found abandoned luggage containing 18 birds – five of which were dead. The luggage tracked to Dong.

On April 13, Dong was coming back to the United States from Vietnam. He was held for inspection and found to have had bird feathers and droppings on his socks, and birds’ tail feathers peeking out from under his pants. (I’m not making this up.) All told, Dong had 14 of the birds attached to his legs. All of the birds survived the flight.

Officials were able to link Le to Dong and a search of Le’s residence turned up an additional 51 birds and cages.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Williams, the song birds are sold to collectors and exhibitors in the United States for up to $400 apiece.

Dong and Le were charged with conspiracy in an eight-count indictment. Le is also charged with making a false statement to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, while Dong faces three additional counts of illegally importing wildlife and three counts of importing goods by means of false statement.

If convicted, Le faces a statutory maximum of 26 years in prison, while Dong faces 10 years in prison. Both men are free on bond.

Tags: birds attached to legs, duc le, song birds, sony dong, two men plead not guilty

handbook

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

at 12:40 pmfaq and is filed under Bird Smuggling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.