Updated: 10:38 p.m. ET April 19,
2006
ANCHORAGE,
Alaska - Larry Csonka’s mother used to tell him, “Don’t make a
federal case out of it.” Now, he says, he knows what she meant.
Csonka, the
host of a cable television show filmed in Alaska, was fined $5,000 on Wednesday
for conducting commercial work in a national forest without obtaining a special
use permit, a case he said could have been handled administratively.
“The
National Forest Service and the prosecutor’s office wanted to make an
example out of it,” he said.
Csonka is host of
“NAPA’s North to Alaska,” a show that appears weekly on OLN and
features fishing, hunting, history and customs from around the
state.
He called
his prosecution “going to the guillotine for running a traffic
light.”
In January,
Csonka reached an agreement to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of
filming on national forest land without proper permits, once on Mitkoff Island
in 2002 and once last year near Cordova.
Besides
fining Csonka the maximum $2,500 on each count, federal Magistrate John Roberts
ordered him to pay $3,887 in restitution and placed him on probation for one
year. That could be shortened once Csonka completes a public service
announcement using footage shot in the Cordova area violation.
Retta
Randall, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Csonka and his company, Zonk!
Productions, were warned in the first incident that they needed a permit.
“They
were told to go to the office to get a permit retroactively,” she said.
“That did not happen.”
In the
second, she said, Csonka claimed he relied on a lodge owner to vouch that the
area in which filming occurred was not on Forest Service land.
“Frankly, the lodge owner does not do the
filming,” she said.
She
acknowledged that the case would likely be noted by others who use Forest
Service land.
“The
fine is basically to sort of get his attention, but more importantly, it’s
to send a message to other film makers who use this land,” Randall
said.
Audrey
Bradshaw, executive producer of the show, said 26 episodes of Csonka’s
show have been produced annually over nine seasons. Many were shot on Forest
Service, Bureau of Land Management or Native Alaskans’ land, and that the
company consistently has obtained necessary permits, she said.
“There
was no intent of skirting the law,” she said.
The first
incident in 2002 resulted from a miscommunication between a crew in the field
and the Zonk! Productions office, Csonka said after sentencing.
“The
check was supposed to be sent in,” he said. “We thought it had. By
the time the accountant caught it, it was too late.”
The
production company itself reported the second incident after filming
scene-setting shots near a glacier and spotting a Forest Service truck drive
by.
Csonka said
Alaska’s patchwork pattern of land ownership creates confusion for people
operating in rural Alaska, where ownership can vary widely along a single
river.
“I’ve relied heavily on the information of locals
in the areas we visit but in most cases they’re as confused about the
invisible boundaries of the national forests as I am,” he said.
Csonka’s attorney, Kevin Fitzgerald, asked Roberts to
impose no fine. Between restitution, fees, and possible loss of sponsorships,
the demands of the law had been satisfied, he said.
Judge
Roberts, however, used a football analogy to address Csonka. He told the Hall
of Fame fullback that he needed a game plan in researching land ownership and
obtaining permits before taking to the field.
“The
way of doing business does not give you license to disregard the law,”
Roberts said.