Legal News

Prosecutors File Whale Of A Case Against Sushi Eatery

By Nathan Koppel

The sushi wars are on!

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles yesterday filed criminal charges against Typhoon Restaurant, Inc., alleging that its Santa Monica, California sushi eatery, The Hump, sold endangered whale meat.

"Someone should not be able to walk into a restaurant and order a plate of an endangered species," United States Attorney André Birotte Jr. said in a statement.

The Hump sold whale sushi on at least 3 occasions, dating back to October, the criminal complaint alleges.

“The Hump restaurant accepts responsibility for the wrongdoing . . . and will agree to pay a fine and resolve this matter,” Gary Lincenberg, counsel to the restaurant, said in a statement.

As reported by the Times earlier this week, there is an interesting backstory to these charges, involving the Academy Awards and the filmmakers behind the Oscar-winning documentary, "The Cove," which concerns dolphin hunting in Japan.

The documentarians, a group of animal activists, worked with federal authorities to stage a "Hollywood-meets-Greenpeace-style covert operation" to ferret out whether the Hump was selling whale sushi, the Times reports.

Wearing tiny cameras, two investigators shot videos at the restaurant in which they were served what a waitress called "whale."

"This isn't just about saving whales," Louie Psihoyos, the director of "The Cove", told the Times about the covert operatoin. "But about saving the planet."

Typhoon Inc. and a chef at The Hump (what a name!) were each charged with a misdemeanor ─ illegally selling a marine mammal product ─ which carries a maximum one-year prison term.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 11, 2010 (boomark / email).