Owner of West Hollywood Curio Store Sentenced for Illegally Importing Seahorses

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA -- The owner of a West Hollywood curio store that specializes in taxidermy, animal skulls and dried or preserved bats was sentenced to one year of probation today for violating the Endangered Species Act by knowingly importing protected seahorses and bat skulls without the proper permits.

Nancy Delap Smith, 56, of Studio City, was also ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.

Her West Hollywood store, Necromance, was ordered to pay $20,000 in fines and placed on probation for two years.

Smith and a store representative entered guilty pleas in July to unlawful trade in protected species before U.S. Magistrate Judge John E. McDermott.

"The laws are designed to protect plant and wildlife that is threatened," Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis Mitchell said after a previous hearing. "In this case, documentation is needed to bring these items into the country."

The case stemmed from packages sent from Indonesia and intercepted, before reaching the store, in March and May 2011 by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection international mail facility.

Mailing labels identified the contents as containing keychains and freeze-dried bats "for educational study," according to the declaration of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent who investigated the case.

Upon examination, the first package contained dozens of dried seahorses -- attached to keychains -- mantises, scorpions, tree frogs, sleeping fruit bats and hanging fruit bats, the agent wrote.

The package also included a document "which incorrectly or falsely" stated that the shipment contained no species on the CITES -- Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora -- checklist, according to the agent.

The international agreement aims to ensure that trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

The agent wrote that the second package, intercepted two months later, contained additional seahorse keychains and numerous bat skulls found to be protected under CITES. An invoice described the seahorse keychains as a non-CITES item, according to the agent's declaration.

Prosecutors said Smith was aware that the contents of the Indonesia shipments could contain protected wildlife products.

-- City News Service, photo via Shutterstock