Bird-brained Guyanese caged by Judge Dora for smuggling “twa-twa” birds

Apr 18, 2013 News

New York (New York Daily News) – A bird-brained smuggler nabbed at Kennedy Airport with nine singing finches from Guyana hidden up his sleeve was sentenced Tuesday to six months in prison.

Caged: Marlon Hariram

The Guyanese, Marlon Hariram, intended to sell the birds — worth more than US$5,000 — in Queens, where they compete in high-stakes singing contests.
It was his fourth arrest for trying to bring the protected birds into the U.S. without a proper license.
Seven finches perished last fall in federal custody and the freeze-dried corpses are being stored in a U.S. Fish and Wildlife evidence room, according to papers filed in Brooklyn Federal Court. The surviving pair will be donated to a zoo or nature preserve.
Hariram, 31, asked Judge Dora Irizarry to delay his surrender so he could complete a vocational training course, and then decided he was ready to do his jail time immediately.
“You need to wake up and smell the reality,” Irizarry said. “I don’t know what kind of fairy tale land you’re living in!”
Judge Irizarry is the same judge who sentenced drug lord, Roger Khan, and is handling the case of Edul Ahmad, another Guyanese who is accused in a mortgage fraud scheme and is set to be sentenced.