Deer breeder fined 1.5M for smuggling whitetails into ETX

[elkhunter]

Hi Friends,
Do you heard about this.

TYLER, Texas – After a lengthy four year investigation a 77-year-old Cherokee County, Texas licensed deer breeder was sentenced for illegally transporting wildlife in the Eastern District of Texas and then lying about it to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent, announced U.S. Attorney John M. Bales today.

Billy Powell pleaded guilty on June 14, 2011, to the felony offense of smuggling at least 37 whitetail deer, over a 3 year time span, from Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio into Texas in violation of state and federal laws. Powell also admitted that he made a false statement and submitted a false document to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife special agent who was looking into the matter. Today, Powell was sentenced to serve 3 years probation with six months home confinement to be monitored with an electric anklet. Powell was also ordered to pay a $1 million fine, to be deposited into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Lacy Act Reward Fund, as well as $500,000.00 in restitution to Texas Parks and Wildlife. During the term of probation, Powell will be prohibited from participating in any manner in commercial deer breeding. Additionally, Powell must forfeit any illegally imported deer, any progeny of those deer, and any biological material derived from said deer, which would include any semen, antlers, mounts, and cloned deer. Powell has already forfeited over 1,300 straws of frozen semen valued at approximately $961,500.00 to U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

This case was investigated by the Special Operations Unit of the Texas Parks and Wildlife and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Noble.

[BruceBruce1959]

I read the articles back in June regarding this Breeder and said "If a breeder was capable of smuggling 37 Whitetail Deer into Texas
then my guess would be he had a lot of help from other participants, (other breeders or Outfitters who were willing to participate" with him).
My Gut tells me this wasn't a single person operation, I would like to see others that may have been involved charged as well.

It's a real shame the lengths many breeders and some outfitters will go through to create "trophy" deer,
most of them do nothing more than poison our hunting privileges by committing these type of illegal activities.