Selby Gardens, expert fined in illicit orchid case
By Times Staff Writer
Published April 10, 2004
TAMPA - Marie Selby Botanical Gardens and one of its plant experts were sentenced by a federal judge Friday to probation and ordered to pay fines for their roles in a case involving the alleged smuggling of a spectacular new orchid species from Peru.
Selby Gardens, one of Sarasota's most popular tourist attractions, is an internationally known center for orchid study and identification. Now it carries another distinction: the first botanical garden to be convicted of violating endangered species laws.
In June 2002, a Virginia orchid collector, Michael Kovach, showed up at Selby with a new variety of ladyslipper he bought at a roadside stand in Peru.
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. They rushed the identification into print ahead of a rival, a former Selby employee who had worked up a description based on photos, not the actual plant.
However, Kovach did not have permits to ship an endangered plant out of Peru and into the United States, and Selby officials knew it. Selby shipped part of the plant back to Peru without permits, but kept a sample and allowed a Selby consultant to take part of it to Vermont to try to grow it.
After Peruvian authorities complained, federal wildlife agents searched the Kovach and Selby greenhouses and confiscated the Vermont sample.
The garden and Higgins pleaded guilty in January. As part of their plea agreement, Selby Gardens was sentenced in Tampa federal court on Friday to three years of probation and fined $5,000. Selby officials must publicly apologize and recommend to the international body in charge of naming new species that the orchid be renamed.
Higgins was fined $2,000 and put on probation for two years, with six months of that time to be spent on home detention. Kovach was indicted separately and has pleaded innocent.
