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Man finds flower's power arresting

When he sold endangered orchids on eBay, officials asked where he got them. Now he faces charges for having them.

By ALEX LEARY
Published May 4, 2005

	[Special to the Times]
	The Dancing Lady variety of orchid is among the endangered species that Gary Bienemann is charged with taking.

CLEARWATER - The affair began innocently enough, with trips to Home Depot and Lowe's.

Soon, Gary Bienemann was obsessed.

For an orchid, it seemed, he would do anything.

Bienemann took to the woods near his Clearwater home in search of the flowers. He also traveled to South Florida where, state officials say, he illegally plucked a rare and protected variety from the same swamp that served as a backdrop for the book The Orchid Thief.

Before long, Bienemann was hoarding orchids at home and selling them on eBay for $15 to $25 apiece. He shipped dozens in the past year and half.

When investigators showed up at his home, Bienemann said he was surprised he had not been caught sooner.

After all, two of the varieties - the Dancing Lady and Ribbon Orchid - were endangered species that had been taken illegally from the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park, a swamp in southwest Florida, and the Jonathan Dickinson State Park, north of Palm Beach.

Tuesday, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced it arrested Bienemann, 48, on a charge of unlawful harvesting, possession and sale of endangered, protected and threatened species of orchids.

He is awaiting a court date on the first-degree misdemeanor charge, which carries a maximum of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Bienemann could not be reached for comment.

"This man's biggest problem probably was stupidity. He did it on eBay," said Paul Martin Brown, author of Wild Orchids of Florida. "I'm delighted someone has been caught. This goes on far too often."

Bienemann, of course, is not the first person to be consumed by the orchid phenomenon.

For centuries, their beauty and complexity have become a subject of legend and international intrigue.

"When a man falls in love with orchids, he'll do anything to possess the one he wants," Norman McDonald wrote in his 1939 book The Orchid Hunters. "It's like chasing a green-eyed woman or taking cocaine, it's a sort of madness."

For those who discover orchids, said Harold Koopowitz, editor of Orchid Digest, "it's almost like a new universe and when if you fall into it, you get ensnared. They're big and they're gaudy and gorgeous."

Orchids have become a $2-billion industry, the most lucrative flower business worldwide. The scope of the illegal trade is unknown, but federal officials in 2003 found records at a Texas nursery indicating three shipments of Peruvian orchids sold for more than $45,000.

Last year, a U.S. district judge in Tampa sentenced Michael Kovach to two years' probation and a $1,000 fine for carrying a particularly stunning orchid from Peru, a violation of an international law, and bringing it to Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota.

In Bienemann's case, the scheme came unraveled when an orchid admirer saw his eBay listings, including the Dancing Lady and Ribbon Orchid.

The admirer tipped off the DEP's division of law enforcement on Feb. 22. The next day, an officer visited Bienemann's home and saw numerous orchids in the front yard.

At first, Bienemann denied taking them. He said a friend had a swamp and removed the orchids from fallen trees.

But when the officer commented that Bienemann's body language suggested he wasn't being truthful, another story was offered.

Bienemann said he and a girlfriend began purchasing orchids four years ago from home improvement stores. He said he became obsessed with the plants and began harvesting orchids he knew were listed as protected or endangered.

Bienemann, according to Lt. R.E. Ferguson of the DEP, said most of the orchids came from woods near Ridgemoor Boulevard in Pinellas County.

He denied taking orchids from the South Florida swamps. Those two varieties, he said, came from a man he met at a nursery show in Tampa.

DEP spokeswoman Lucia Ross, however, said the agency can trace Bienemann to South Florida.

"It was just an egregious crime he was doing for total personal financial gain," she said. "Just imagine if everyone was Mr. Bienemann and just took one orchid. There wouldn't be any left."

The plants found at Bienemann's home were confiscated. DEP officials will attempt to reintroduce them to the wild.

But Ross cautioned, "the chance of them sprouting and coming back is very slim."

Staff writers Craig Pittman and Graham Brink contributed to this report.

[Last modified May 4, 2005, 00:58:13]