On June 25, 2007, Jeffrey Andrew Diaz was sentenced to prison yesterday in the Northern District of California for smuggling Eurasian Eagle Owl eggs into the United States from Austria. Judge Marilyn Hall Patel sentenced Diaz to
21 months in prison, a $5,000.00 fine, three years of supervised release, a $400.00 special assessment, and a prohibition during the period of supervised release on contact with any bird requiring a permit, including raptors. The sentence reflected an enhancement for obstruction of justice, as well as the market value of the eggs, which Judge Patel found to be between $10,000.00 and $30,000.00.
Diaz operated a bird abatement business which used captive raptors to scare nuisance birds from client sites. Diaz pleaded guilty on November 28, 2006, to two counts of smuggling and two counts of making false statements on customs declarations According to court documents filed by the prosecution, in March and April 2005, Diaz made two trips from Austria to the United States, during which he smuggled a total of 12 Eurasian Eagle Owl eggs into the country by concealing them in Easter baskets and failing to declare them to customs officials.
The Eurasian Eagle Owl is listed on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (