TAMPA - Marie Selby Botanical Gardens and one of its orchid experts pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to illegally possessing and trading a new species that prosecutors say was smuggled out of Peru.
Selby Gardens faces three years' probation and a $5,000 fine and must publicly apologize and warn other botanical gardens about its crime. Selby orchid expert Wesley Higgins is likely to be fined $2,000 and put on probation for two years, with six months of that time spent on home detention.
Selby Gardens, one of Sarasota's most popular tourist attractions, is an internationally known center for orchid study and identification. In June 2002, a Virginia orchid collector, Michael Kovach, showed up with a dazzling new variety of ladyslipper. Selby's orchid experts, led by Cape Coral resident Wesley Higgins, agreed to publish a scientific description and name the new species after Kovach: Phragmipedium kovachii.
However, Kovach did not have permits to ship an endangered plant out of Peru and into the United States, and Selby officials knew it, prosecutors say.
Selby shipped part of the plant back to Peru without permits, prosecutor Elinor Colburn said, but kept a sample and allowed a Selby consultant to take part of it to Vermont to try to grow it. As part of its sentence, Selby officials must recommend to the international body in charge of naming new species that the orchid no longer be named for Kovach.
Kovach, who was charged in a separate case, is scheduled to make his first appearance in federal court next week.
