Lumber Liquidators sentenced to pay $10 million

NEW YORK (AP) — Lumber Liquidators will pay more than $13 million for illegally importing hardwood flooring.

The Toano-based company pleaded guilty to five federal charges involving illegal lumber trafficking in October of 2015.

A USA flooring retailer that used timber harvested in the habitat of Siberian tigers and other endangered species was sentenced Monday to pay a record criminal fine over illegal trafficking.

Lumber Liquidators had also requested a five-year probation sentence under several conditions, including that it does not commit another crime in that period and creates an environmental compliance plan.

According to a joint statement of facts filed with the court, from 2010 to 2013, Lumber Liquidators repeatedly failed to follow its own internal procedures and failed to take action on self-identified “red flags”.

“This historic criminal sentence against a major US company in relation to the Lacey Act is setting an important precedent: Illegal wood is no longer tolerated in the United States”, said EIA Executive Director Alexander von Bismarck.

“Lumber Liquidators is pleased to put this legacy issue behind us”, the company said in a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg. The subsequent investigation by the DOJ found that Lumber Liquidators committed systemic fraud and sourced illegal timber not only from the Russian Far East but also from Burma. “U.S. consumers need to be protected from unknowingly supporting organized crime and the destruction of the world’s last virgin forests”. The investigation revealed a prevalent practice in timber smuggling enterprises, where a company uses a seemingly legitimate government permit to log trees.

The penalty includes $1.2 million in payments to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the USFWS Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Fund.