JERSEY JOURNAL (Jersey City, New Jersey) 22 September 06 LSC snake chief wiggles out on appeal; boa sale was OK
(Newhouse News Service) A Liberty Science Center snake specialist sanctioned for selling a serpent without a license has been exonerated.
State Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Falcone, sitting in Morristown, ruled the state failed to show that Danny Mendez, a herpetologist in charge of the Liberty Science Center's reptile and amphibian collection, was retailing snakes.
Falcone reversed the December finding of Harding Municipal Judge Robert Schaul, who imposed a $750 fine.
Mendez, 32, said he could have paid a $200 fine when he was first charged, but decided to fight to clear his name.
"It was my reputation at stake," he said. The stigma of having done something improper in the conservation world "puts all your work to shame."
The Morris County Prosecutor's Office declined comment on the ruling.
Mendez had arranged to sell his boa to what turned out to be an undercover state Division of Fish and Wildlife conservation officer in January 2005 in the Liberty Science Center parking lot in Jersey City.
Conservation officers then searched his office and home.
Mendez said he was selling the snake out of his private collection, which is permissible under his hobbyist license. At the time, he had more than two dozen boas of various types and three pythons in his collection, which he kept in a spare bedroom of his Harding Township home, the decision said.
But authorities claimed Mendez set up a Web site, Urbanjungles.com, to retail reptiles without a pet shop license. The site included links for shipping and payments options.
Mendez testified that the Web site was created to educate visitors about how to care for snakes, not to sell them.
He explained that the shipping and payment options were on his site because the colleague who set it up for him had lifted information off sites that sell snakes.
LSC snake chief wiggles out on appeal; boa sale was OK