St. Jude Medical CEO Arrested Overseas

As a business executive, Daniel J. Starks has grown accustomed to travel delays. But the top boss at St. Jude Medical Inc. experienced a different kind of holdup last week while traveling through India: He was arrested by airport police in New Dehli for possession of ammunition.

Authorities detained Starks on March 16 after they found a single ammunition shell in his clothes. The Indian Express identified the shell as a round of .45-caliber ammunition, which typically is used in a handgun.

A spokeswoman for the St. Paul, Minn.-based medical device manufacturer confirmed the CEO’s arrest (branding it a “misunderstanding”) but provided only scant details about the event. She told Reuters that Starks “is respectful of local processes” and was “fully cooperating with local authorities to resolve the matter.” The spokeswoman also said that Starks would remain in India to clear up the situation; it was not clear Wednesday whether he was back in the United States and had returned to work at St. Jude.

An avid sportsman, Starks is legally licensed to own a firearm in the United States, the company’s spokeswoman claimed. However, the Indian Express reported that Starks, when confronted about the bullet in his pocket, produced an invalid U.S. firearms license. The St. Jude spokeswoman said he was not carrying a gun at the time of his arrest.

Starks has been chairman, president and CEO of St. Jude Medical since May 2004. He was president and chief operating officer of the company from January 2001 to May 2004. He served as president and CEO of the company’s Cardiac Rhythm Management business beginning in April 1998.

Before he joined St. Jude Medical, Starks was CEO and President of Daig Corporation after it became a wholly-owned subsidiary of St. Jude in 1996. Prior to the merger, Starks was president, secretary and a director at Daig.