Mamie Manneh’s Monkey Meat: Court Rules Against Free Exercise Claim in Smuggling Case

A federal judge in Brooklyn has rejected the free exercise claim of Mamie Manneh that she has a constitutional right to import monkey meat without a permit. The Liberian woman was found guilty of smuggling the meat by Chief District Judge Raymond J. Dearie and faces five years in jail.

Three years ago, Manneh was arrested for smuggling endangered monkey meat to feed an underground bushmeat market of Africans who consider it a delicacy. She claimed that she needed the meat for religious purposes.
She faces up to five years in prison and deportation if convicted.

Dearie expressed skepticism over Manneh’s religious claim in his 31-page decision, noting nothing in her religion “required her to abstain from truthful completion of paperwork.”

Manneh was arrested at the airport after monkey parts were found in her luggage. Such violations continue to feed the appetite for bushmeat, including a gruesome recent discovery of charred monkeys in luggage at Dulles Airport.

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