A person from Washington State has been sentenced to 2 years in federal jail for promoting objects produced within the Philippines and passing them off as Alaska Native works. He offered greater than $1m price of forgeries in violation of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990—a truth-in-advertising regulation that prohibits misrepresentation within the sale of Native American crafts all through the US—going as far as to rent Alaska Native clerks in his shops to falsely symbolize his wares.
In response to the US Legal professional’s Workplace in Alaska, Cristobal “Cris” Magno Rodrigo operated two corporations based mostly in Alaska between April 2016 and December 2021. The primary, Alaska Stone Arts, offered principally stone carvings, and the second, Rail Creek, dealt in wood totem poles. Each the carvings and totem poles have been sourced from Rodrigo Artistic Crafts, an organization owned and operated by Rodrigo’s spouse within the Philippines and created to provide knock-off Alaska Native objects. Rodrigo, who had labored within the Alaskan vacationer commerce for over 20 years, taught individuals on the firm within the Philippines learn how to mimic the genuine types and motifs of actual Alaska Native objects. In 2019 and a part of 2021, Rodrigo’s internet of family-based corporations offered over $1m in falsified merchandise.
Rodrigo’s two-year jail sentence is the longest anybody has obtained for this sort of transgression, based on the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. (The second-longest is simply 6 months.) Rodrigo can be required to donate $60,000 to the Tlingit and Haida Central Counsel Vocational Program, write an apology letter for publication within the Ketchikan Every day Information and serve three years of supervised launch. Instances involving Rodrigo’s co-conspirators, Glenda Tiglao Rodrigo and Christian Ryan Tiglao Rodrigo, are ongoing.
“The actions the defendant took to purposefully deceive prospects and forge paintings is a cultural affront to Alaska Native artisans who pleasure themselves on producing these historic artworks, and negatively impacts those that make a residing training the craft,” stated S. Lane Tucker, US Legal professional for the District of Alaska, in a press release.
The Indian Arts and Crafts board director, Meridith Stanton, concurred: “Mr. Rodrigo’s sentencing ought to ship a robust message to those that prey upon genuine Alaska Native artists and weak customers that this damaging conduct won’t be tolerated, and act violators will likely be held accountable.”
Rodrigo is much from the one individual caught violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act this 12 months. In July, a memento retailer in Alaska was sued for promoting items from Nepal, India and Thailand as “Native artwork” and “made in Alaska”. And in Could, a Seattle-based artist who falsely claimed Indigenous heritage was sentenced to 18 months of probation.
