Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

[2triky]

[Taro Toporific]

[2triky]

The owner/chef sounds like he's trying too hard to be contrite in order to beat the possible $200,000 max. fine PER VIOLATION. He must have served whale dozens of times (dozens of violations).

You raise a good point.

Perhaps it's not genuine and he's been advised by counsel...in any event maybe he realizes the reputation of his restaurant is shot and this is a means to bow out gracefully or make the best of a bad situation since the establishment got caught on tape.

[Kuang_Grade]

The owner/chef sounds like he's trying too hard to be contrite in order to beat the possible $200,000 max. fine PER VIOLATION. He must have served whale dozens of times (dozens of violations).

While I suspect this is certainly the case, depending on the ownership structure and what insurance they carried, I've got a feeling this could also be an attempt for some sort of insurance play as well.

[Yokohammer]

Fascinating. And I agree that Taro has a good point.

If anyone sees or reads anything about this in the Japanese media, please drop an alert in this thread.

I'm guessing the J-media are going to stay well away from this one.

[Number11]

Hold on here... I thought the Japanese chef was not the owner. The owner is an American (without any Japanese ancestry). That's why it says "the owner and chef,'" not "owner/chef."

[Samurai_Jerk]

Hardly seems worth the risk if you're only charging six hundred bucks. I guess it depends on what else was included in the omakase.

[TennoChinko]

With the knowledge that activists were behind the arrest etc., I am wondering whether they might have purposely pleaded with the chef to procure them some tasty tasty whale meat to the point of entrapment - or it was always on the omakase menu?

With Japanese in LA, it's whale meat. Russians in Hokkaido, it's cheap handguns

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100320p2a00m0na011000c.html

Hokkaido government ordered to compensate former Russian sailor over sting operation

SAPPORO -- The Sapporo District Court ordered the Hokkaido Prefectural Government on Friday to pay a former Russian sailor 500,000 yen for causing him emotional distress in connection with a 1997 undercover sting operation.

The 40-year-old Russian had sought damages totaling 23.1 million yen from the national and prefectural governments for emotional distress caused by his arrest and imprisonment for gun possession after a sting operation and false evidence given by investigators in his court proceedings.

According to the sentence, in November 1997, the Russian man was approached by a Pakistani man who offered to exchange a used car for a gun. When the plaintiff tried to hand off the gun at Otaru port in the Hokkaido city of Otaru, he was arrested by Hokkaido police investigators.

In a criminal lawsuit over the case, the Russian man insisted on his innocence, claiming that the investigation had been a case of illegal entrapment. Yoshiaki Inaba, 56, a former Hokkaido prefectural police inspector who is now serving time for drug violations and other crimes, falsely testified that the Pakistani man had not been at the scene of the incident. The Russian man ended up serving two years in prison.

A major point of contention in the case was the legality of the sting operation. The plaintiff argued that it was a case of illegal entrapment provoking criminal intent. Presiding Judge Ikujiro Nakayama stated, however, that it seemed likely that the plaintiff was accustomed to gun deals, that the possibility that he is involved with the mafia cannot be completely eliminated, and that there remain suspicions that he intended to bring guns into Japan even without the deal with the Pakistani man, concluding that the investigation could not be considered a case of illegal entrapment.

Meanwhile, the judge said that false testimony affected the Russian man's prison sentence in no insignificant terms, recognizing the emotional distress he suffered.

The plaintiff plans to appeal.


(Mainichi Japan) March 20, 2010

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

[quote="TennoChinko"]With the knowledge that activists were behind the arrest etc., I am wondering whether they might have purposely pleaded with the chef to procure them some tasty tasty whale meat to the point of entrapment - or it was always on the omakase menu?

With Japanese in LA, it's whale meat. Russians in Hokkaido, it's cheap handguns ]

I hope to God for our human's rights sake that he took his swimming trunks off before he got in the onsen. If he hadn't done that, we'd have been in real trouble.

[Samurai_Jerk]

With the knowledge that activists were behind the arrest etc., I am wondering whether they might have purposely pleaded with the chef to procure them some tasty tasty whale meat to the point of entrapment - or it was always on the omakase menu?

Can't say I'm crazy about the idea of a "sting" involving activitst but I guess it's not much different from reporters doing an expose.

[TennoChinko]

Can't say I'm crazy about the idea of a "sting" involving activitst but I guess it's not much different from reporters doing an expose.

I am inclined to agree however if it involved entrapment, I think it stinks.

If the restaurant normally did not serve whale meat but were pestered by the activists promising to pay top dollar. And, since the 'customer is always right', the chef gives in, calls a friend, serves the customers and then gets arrested for his troubles ... I believe a significant number of so-called sting operations conducted by non law enforcement (eg press and activists) in their 'zeal' to obtain a result, utilize entrapment.

[2triky]

I am inclined to agree however if it involved entrapment, I think it stinks.

If the restaurant normally did not serve whale meat but were pestered by the activists promising to pay top dollar. And, since the 'customer is always right', the chef gives in, calls a friend, serves the customers and then gets arrested for his troubles ... I believe a significant number of so-called sting operations conducted by non law enforcement (eg press and activists) in their 'zeal' to obtain a result, utilize entrapment.

[Kuang_Grade]

If the restaurant normally did not serve whale meat but were pestered by the activists promising to pay top dollar. And, since the 'customer is always right', the chef gives in, calls a friend, serves the customers and then gets arrested for his troubles ... I believe a significant number of so-called sting operations conducted by non law enforcement (eg press and activists) in their 'zeal' to obtain a result, utilize entrapment.

Come on, how stupid does the chef has to be for that to work? Random stranger stops by and asks, hey, 'can you arrange a kilo of heroin and big spread of mahi mahi for this party I'm planning?...I'll have the party here!'

It would be one thing if the activist were somehow trying to sell fake whale meat to the restaurant or somehow interject the contraband material on to previously uninterested or unwilling party (ie, run up a big tab and then offer to pay it off in whale meat) but merely asking/offering money to someone to get you something that is illegal isn't anywhere near entrapment

[TennoChinko]

Come on, how stupid does the chef has to be for that to work? Random stranger stops by and asks, hey, 'can you arrange a kilo of heroin and big spread of mahi mahi for this party I'm planning?...I'll have the party here!'

It would be one thing if the activist were somehow trying to sell fake whale meat to the restaurant or somehow interject the contraband material on to previously uninterested or unwilling party (ie, run up a big tab and then offer to pay it off in whale meat) but merely asking/offering money to someone to get you something that is illegal isn't anywhere near entrapment

People are generally stupid if they get fooled via entrapment, but it happens - and it's not as unsophisticated as you portrayed. A new customer who has been coming in regularly, spends and tips generously, makes a special request:

"Weed? in Japan? Sorry, Toshi- no can do. Don't know anyone who does." The third time around, he gives in, calls up a dope-head buddy and presents a bag of weed." Bingo.

It doesn't make it right however.

[Bucky]

Witch hunt?

Louie Psihoyos (who took home an Oscar this month for directing The Cove, about a secrect dolphin-killing operation in Japan) is prepared to expose renegade sushi restaurants across the United States for serving illegal whale meat.. . . . Psihoyos, founder of the Oceanic Preservation Society, is now going after restaurants in San Francisco, Seattle, and New York that are rumored to also serve kujira (whale). "Wherever you are," he said in an interview outside The Hump before it closed down, "we will find you."

[2triky]

Witch hunt?

Whale hunt...this guy is a modern day Moby Prick.

[jingai]

Holy crap, the Ramens were right! And I thought their vidoes were humorous.

See 5:45 here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8c2fMDatoU

[2triky]

Prosecutors Seek To Dismiss Whale Sushi Charges

04/28/2010 | AP

LOS ANGELES � Federal prosecutors have moved to dismiss charges against a Southern California sushi restaurant that admitted serving illegal and endangered whale meat, though the case appears not to be over.

U.S. attorney's office spokesman Thom Mrozek said Wednesday that prosecutors want charges dismissed without prejudice, meaning they could refile them in the future.

Mrozek didn't explain the move, but said the investigation into The Hump restaurant in Santa Monica remains open and active.

Typhoon Restaurant Inc., parent company of The Hump, and the restaurant's chef were each charged with a misdemeanor count of selling a marine mammal product for an unauthorized purpose.

An attorney for Typhoon has said the now-closed restaurant accepted responsibility for the wrongdoing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/29/the-hump-whale-meat-scand_n_556361.html

[2triky]

Whale-meat importer pleads guilty



June 2, 2011

A man who sold whale meat to a Santa Monica sushi restaurant faces eight to 14 months in prison for the crime.

Ginichi Ohira, 50, pleaded guilty Tuesday, acknowledging he "knowingly sold a marine mammal product, namely, whale meat, and ... did so for an unauthorized purpose," according to a court document.

Charges related to the illegal sale of whale meat were originally filed in March 2010.

The case came to light when federal agents and animal-rights activists cooperated in a video sting orchestrated by the associate producer of the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove," which looked at the slaughter of dolphins in Japan.
Activists used a mini video camera to record their order of a $600 omakase, or chef's choice, meal at the Hump, a trendy restaurant near the Santa Monica Airport.

The two activists asked whether they could get whale meat as part of the chef's choice, and a waitress then served eight pieces, according to a federal affidavit.

Activists bagged samples that were tested and later determined to be sei whale.

"Someone should not be able to walk into a restaurant and order a plate of an endangered species," U.S. Atty. Andre Birotte Jr. said in a statement at the time.

The restaurant closed in March; its operators also issued a public apology.

The plea agreement states that Ohira, who has moved back to Japan, began illegally importing whale meat from Tokyo in about 2001 and selling it to Southland sushi restaurants. These included one in El Segundo, to a chef who later began working at the Hump.

A June 28, 2007, invoice booked into evidence showed a price of $5,106 for a single transaction.

Besides prison time, the maximum sentence could include a year of probation and a fine in excess of $100,000.

Sentencing is set for September, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/06/importer-of-illegal-whale-meat-to-santa-monica-restaurant-faces-eight-to-14-months-in-prison.html

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

This case is an absolute disgrace. These blokes were doing nothing more than carrying out important scientific research...

[2triky]

This case is an absolute disgrace. These blokes were doing nothing more than carrying out important scientific research...

I wonder if they were serving Humpback whale. Just sayin'...

[Mulboyne]

I notice he's back in Japan. If he does get a prison sentence then it's doubtful he'll serve it because any extradition request will likely be denied on the grounds the offence is not a crime in Japan.

[Iraira]

I notice he's back in Japan. If he does get a prison sentence then it's doubtful he'll serve it because any extradition request will likely be denied on the grounds the offence is not a crime in Japan.

Maybe he'll be dumb enough to eventually travel to Saipan for a vacation, not knowing it's actually a US territory, and well...we all know how this turns out...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I notice he's back in Japan. If he does get a prison sentence then it's doubtful he'll serve it because any extradition request will likely be denied on the grounds the offence is not a crime in Japan.

Kinda like Issei Sagawa, huh?

[Taro Toporific]

Grand jury indicts the Hump and sushi chefs in whale meat case
Los Angeles Times / February 1, 2013
The shuttered Hump restaurant in Santa Monica and two of its sushi chefs have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges including selling sei whale meat, an announcement from the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles says.
Typhoon Restaurant Inc., the parent company of the Hump, and Kiyoshiro Yamamoto and Susumu Ueda were named in the nine-count indictment. Other charges include conspiracy to import and sell meat from the endangered sei whale and lying to federal investigators...
...If convicted, Yamamoto faces up to 67 years in prison, and Ueda faces a maximum 10-year term. Typhoon would face fines totaling $1.2 million. {{given the maximum sentence, 48-year-old Yamamoto could end up behind bars for up to 67 years, which would effectively be a life sentence}}
More...

[matsuki]

LOL, I can't believe anyone would actually go through the trouble of importing whale meat to the US. What kind of demand can there be?

[IparryU]

Damn... they aren't going after the supplier and the entire supply chain?

That's like going after the little leauge pusher, who ratted out all the guys importing and processing blow... Fuck, they know who the big dog is apparently, but not going after them?!?!?!

[matsuki]

The lawyer is giving half-truths...

Yamamoto, 48, and Ueda, 39, allegedly ordered the whale meat from Ginichi Ohira, who has already pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge. According to the U.S. attorney's office, Ohira received the whale meat in the U.S., prepared an invoice that described the meat as fatty tuna and delivered it to the Hump.

Sounds like Ohira was just an agent for the big dog and was hit with a misdemeanor. May have even cut a deal for himself by exposing other customers and the supply chain. (and as far as we know, the DA is going after them too)

[legion]

LOL, I can't believe anyone would actually go through the trouble of importing whale meat to the US. What kind of demand can there be?

pssst, wanna buy some kujira?

same as gaijin selling pot in Japan

[Coligny]

LOL, I can't believe anyone would actually go through the trouble of importing whale meat to the US. What kind of demand can there be?

pssst, wanna buy some kujira?

same as gaijin selling pot in Japan

You got Nutella ?