U.S. Diplomat Incurs Fine for Illegal Ivory Imports

On December 10, 1992, the U.S. District Court in Baltimore imposed a fine of $1,000 on Kenneth A. Loff, who pled guilty to bringing hundreds of pieces of banned ivory into the U.S. from his diplomatic postings in Africa. The defendant pled to a misdemeanor admitted bringing to the U.S. 500 to 600 pieces of ivory varying from carved trinkets to whole elephant tusks valued by federal authorities at $60,000. According to Loff, he bought the pieces before a 1989 ban and believed that they were thereby exempt from the law that prohibits ivory imports…[more]