{"id":143267,"date":"2026-02-04T12:07:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T12:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/143267\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T12:07:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T12:07:17","slug":"florida-man-sentenced-in-wisconsin-for-selling-fake-indigenous-jewelry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/143267\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida man sentenced in Wisconsin for selling fake Indigenous jewelry"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Florida man has been sentenced in Wisconsin to three years of probation and to pay a $25,000 fine for selling fake Native American jewelry across the country.<\/p>\n

Investigators with U.S. Fish and Wildlife said Jose Farinango Muenala<\/a>, 47, of Casselberry, Florida, had attended dozens of art shows as a vendor in the U.S. since 2012, including the 2023 Loon Day Festival in Mercer, Wisconsin, posing as a Pueblo tribal member.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said he told customers the jewelry he sold was handmade by himself or other Pueblo members. It was actually mass produced and imported from the Philippines. Muenala made nearly 41,000 sales, which grossed more than $2.6 million.<\/p>\n

The Indian Arts and Crafts Board starting receiving complaints about Muenala\u2019s Southwest Expressions business misrepresenting the jewelry in 2023. That led to an investigation.<\/p>\n

Muenala was arrested in 2024 for violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, a truth-in-marketing law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Act is intended to rid the Indian arts and crafts marketplace of fakes to protect economic livelihoods and cultural heritage of Indian artists, craftspeople and their tribes, as well as the buying public,\u201d said Meridith Stanton, director of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, in a statement. \u201cAuthentic Indian art and craftwork is an important tool for passing down cultural traditions, traditional knowledge and artistic skills from one generation to the next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muenala was prosecuted by the Department of Justice\u2019s Western District of Wisconsin. He was sentenced Jan. 28.<\/p>\n

“This kind of thing does incredible harm,” said Karen Ann Hoffman, a renowned Oneida Nation beadwork artist from Wisconsin. “I\u2019m glad to see every effort made to protect and preserve our authentic Native art and artists.”<\/p>\n

More: Land is life: How the Oneida Nation is reclaiming its land, and its identity<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sign up for the First Nations Wisconsin newsletter Click here to get all of our Indigenous news coverage right in your inbox<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Florida man sentenced in Wisconsin for selling fake Indigenous jewelry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida man has been sentenced in Wisconsin to three years of probation and to pay a $25,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3682,28,30,29,69553,69550,69555,69549,69552,69551,69554,13810],"class_list":{"0":"post-143267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-casselberry","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-indian-artists","13":"tag-indian-arts","14":"tag-indian-arts-and-crafts-board","15":"tag-jose-farinango-muenala","16":"tag-mercer","17":"tag-native-american-jewelry","18":"tag-u-s-fish-and-wildlife","19":"tag-wisconsin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}