Former Florida CEO Pleads Guilty To Export Violations And Agrees To Pay Record $17 Million To Depart

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/former-florida-ceo-pleads-guilty-export-violations-and-agrees-pay-record-17-million

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Middle District of Florida

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, December 14, 2018

Former Florida CEO Pleads Guilty To Export Violations And Agrees To Pay Record $17 Million To Department Of Commerce

WASHINGTON, DC – Eric Baird, the former owner and Chief Executive Offer (CEO) of a Florida-based package consolidation and shipping service, has pleaded guilty to one count of felony smuggling and admitted to 166 administrative violations of U.S. export control laws as part of a global settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS).

On December 12, 2018, Baird’s criminal plea was accepted by a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, and BIS issued an Order outlining the administrative violations and imposing civil penalties of $17 million, with $7 million suspended, and a 5-year denial of export privileges, of which one year is suspended. The civil penalty is the largest to be paid by an individual in BIS history. In February 2017, Access USA settled with BIS and agreed to an administrative civil penalty of $27 million, with $17 million suspended.

As part of the administrative settlement, Baird admitted to violations of the Export Administration Regulations committed from August 1, 2011, through January 7, 2013, during his tenure as CEO of Access USA Shipping, LLC d/b/a MyUS.com (“Access USA”). Baird founded Access USA and developed its business model, which provided foreign customers with a U.S. address that they used to acquire U.S.-origin items for export without alerting U.S. merchants of the items’ intended destinations. Under Baird’s direction, Access USA developed practices and policies which facilitated concealment from U.S. merchants. Access USA would regularly change the values and descriptions of items on export documentation even where it knew the accurate value and nature of the items. Among the altered descriptions were some for controlled items listed on the Commerce Control List (CCL). For example, laser sights for firearms were described as “tools and hardware,” and rifle scopes were described as “sporting goods” or “tools, hand tools.”

Additionally, Baird established and/or authorized Access USA’s “personal shopper” program. As part of this program, Access USA employees purchased items for foreign customers from a shopping list while falsely presenting themselves to U.S. merchants as the domestic end-users of the items. In some cases, Baird directed or authorized Access USA employees to use his personal credit card information, and in others Baird personally asked Access USA employees to apply for and use personal credit cards of their own to make such purchases and have the items sent to their personal addresses. As a result, in addition to being misled to believe that a domestic customer and end-user was involved when the items were in fact intended for export, the U.S. merchant would be misled to believe that Access USA itself was not involved in the transaction.

The activities that Baird knowingly authorized and/or participated in resulted in unlicensed exports of controlled items to various countries, as well as repeated false statements on Automated Export System (AES) filings. As early as September 2011, Baird was made aware that undervaluing violated U.S. export laws, including the EAR. In fact, Baird received e-mails on this subject from his Chief Technology Officer, who stated, “I know we are WILLINGLY AND INTENTIONALLY breaking the law.” (Emphasis in original). In the same email chain, Baird suggested that Access USA could falsely reduce the value of items by 25% on export control documentation submitted to the U.S. government and if “warned by [the U.S.] government,” then the company “can stop ASAP.”
(snip)

[Farmer-Rick]

1. Now we have a CEO of Florida? Did anyone tell Rick Scott?