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The Gibson CEO was stoic and did not really say much.

Henry Juszkiewicz is in a tough situation. After the government discovered the use of a proxy "ultimate consignee' on the Dallas and Canadian shipments of East Indian Rosewood, and was told by Luthier Mercantile (in California and the Red Arrow warehouse in Nashville that the export, import, and customs paperwork was wrong and that Gibson was the ultimate consignee, the government submitted a sealed pleading in the civil customs case.

That suggests either that the government is preparing a criminal case to go with the thirteen-month-long civil case, or that the government is bringing in the East Indian Rosewood and perhaps some of the parties who were involved in the proxy ultimate consignee case.

Again, I think that the federal government is probably wrong on the East Indian Rosewood fretboards, but that Gibson made a legal shipment look shifty by using import paperwork that never showed Gibson's name and that incorrectly described the contents of the containers. And it's true that India's Harmonized Tariff Schedule does prohibit the export of chipped, split, or cut wood over 6mm in thickness. I just don't think that India has enforced that law. And I think the government is wrong for that reason.

Then, you have to realize that Gibson's in an interesting financial situation, suing its insurers over the Nashville flood, being sued for price-fixing in California (I don't think that suit's been dropped), being in technical default on its loans for (among other things) refusing to release audited 2008 financials. I don't know if Gibson had business interruption insurance after the flood, but it went a year without being able to produce mandolins (I bought one of the first ten to come out of the Custom Shop after they were available again; it's a beauty). If Gibson's started making banjos again, it's been within the last month, so that's something like nineteen months without banjos. And no Dobros.

Henry Juszkiewicz is in a tough situation.

Just curious. Did Juszkiewicz mention the internal Gibson email saying there being no way to obtain legal Madagascar ebony?

bert: Here's an example of the kind of thing Juszkiewicz is saying, what the truth is, and why I'm amazed that people take what Juszkiewicz says as Gospel. Here was the interview about the "US telling Gibson to use Madagascar labor:"

CHRIS DANIEL: Mr. Juszkiewicz, did an agent of the US government suggest to you that your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor?

HENRY JUSZKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a pleading.

CHRIS DANIEL: Excuse me?

HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that it a pleading.

CHRIS DANIEL: That your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor?

HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: Yes

Here was the government's statement in a pleading. it's part of Special Agent Kevin L. Seiler's affidavit. How do I know this is the part that Gibson's referring to? Well, first, I've read the pleadings in the case. This is the only place I've found where the government refers to finished products from Madagascar. Second, paragraph 18 of this affidavit is specifically referred to in Gibson's pleadings as the section of the government's pleading discussing "finished products" from Madagascar (by the way, on eight occasions, Gibson's defense is that that its ebony fingerboards are finished products; Gibson now says it's incensed that it was supposed to use Madagascar labor, after it made the argument eight times in court filings that the import was legal because the ebony was a product finished in Madagascar).:

18. I have reviewed Madagascar governmental documents that appear to authorize [Roger] Thunan to export, on or about March 27, 2009 from Madagascar, over 46,000 kilograms of "finished products" of ebony. Export Authorization Numbers 455, 458 and 461-09?MEFTSG/DREFT SAVA.

19. I have not discovered, despite diligent effort, any authorizations for exports of unfinished, semi-worked, or sawn ebony by Thunan from Madagascar since September 2006.

20. I examined Madagascar 2008 inventory records of existing stocks of Madagascar ebony maintained by the Madagascar Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests. I could find no such stock of Madagascar ebony wood recorded for Thunan.

So, you can see why Henry Juszkiewicz didn't produce any documents to back up his claim that the U.S. government wrote in a pleading that Gibson's problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor. He can't.

Again, I think the truth lies between what the government says and what Gibson says. It's clear that Gibson is not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I don't trust the government to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (and I don't trust the Obama DOJ).

And I think the government's probably wrong on the East Indian Rosewood issue.