Alaska hunting guide serving 6 months in prison for ‘multi-year wildlife crime spree’

Aug. 13—Searching Information

An Alaska looking information is spending six months in an Oregon jail for illegally promoting big-game guiding providers in addition to a number of different violations over a five-year interval.

Stephen Jeremy Hicks, a 45-year-old Anchorage resident, was sentenced in U.S. District Courtroom final month.

The jail time was a part of a plea deal wherein Hicks admitted he guided hunters onto federal lands on a sheep hunt close to Max Lake on the west aspect of Prepare dinner Inlet in 2018 and not using a allow. Together with jail time, he agreed to forfeit a Piper PA-18 Tremendous Cub and pay $13,460 in restitution.

Hicks’ legal professional, Kevin Fitzgerald, stated his shopper began serving his jail sentence on the Federal Correctional Establishment in Sheridan, Oregon, in late July.

It is pretty uncommon for an Alaskan information to get a jail sentence for violating wildlife legal guidelines.

However on this case, federal prosecutors say, Hicks participated in a “multi-year wildlife crime spree” from 2015 till 2019 that triggered the necessity for a harsh penalty, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo earlier this 12 months.

[‘Syndicate Hunting’ host gets prison time for years of poaching]

Lots of the infractions he was accused of occurred whereas Hicks’ guiding license was on probation or revoked.

State officers put his license on probation in 2016 for failing to offer purchasers contracts earlier than offering providers and failing to keep up protected and passable discipline situations, in keeping with the sentencing memo.

The license was completely revoked in March 2019 by a state administrative regulation choose following complaints raised by a “completely depressing” looking journey in October 2017, because the choose wrote in that case.

Final month’s federal sentencing targeted on the 2018 Max Lake incident, however prosecutors through the sentencing part referenced quite a few different state-level costs in opposition to Hicks.

The state’s accusations spanned a five-year interval and included costs of losing moose meat, not accompanying purchasers, killing bears utilizing bait to lure them, and making use of a aircraft and digital communications to identify huge recreation.

Story continues

State attorneys dismissed these costs this month after the federal sentence was handed down, in keeping with Ron Dupois, an legal professional with the Workplace of Particular Prosecutions. That is as a result of the federal sentence made use of the state costs for what’s referred to as related conduct, Dupois stated.

Chief U.S. District Decide Sharon L. Gleason took the state costs into consideration in her sentencing determination and awarded half the restitution to the state.

The federal sentence happy the state’s sentencing targets, Dupois stated. Hicks “had no aircraft, he had no information’s license, he went to jail for six months.”

Gleason throughout final month’s sentencing listening to in federal courtroom referenced the dearth of investigative assets for wildlife safety, the truth that Hicks profited from his crimes, and the belief positioned in huge recreation guides by the state of Alaska, in keeping with an announcement from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace in Anchorage.

The choose stated “the necessity for jail is to clarify that blatant disregard for state and federal fish and wildlife guidelines won’t be tolerated.”

The 2017 hunt that led to Hicks’ license revocation occurred within the Cape Yakataga space between Cordova and Yakutat alongside the rugged northern Gulf of Alaska coast.

A number of of the purchasers on that hunt advised investigators they endured a rain-soaked journey involving a grimy cabin with a flooded woodstove, rotting meals and rodent feces, and Hicks did not present up for a number of days, leaving them to fend for themselves and clear up the mess, in keeping with a 36-page determination doc.

A brown bear one shopper killed himself on the seashore was the one animal efficiently harvested on the journey, in keeping with the choice doc. One other man shot and injured a goat on a hunt with Hicks’ assistant information. The information, who led his shopper into troublesome terrain for the hunt, stated a steep ravine the place the animal ended up was too harmful to retrieve it and “shot the goat ‘to place it out of its distress.’”

Decide Cheryl Mandala in 2019 discovered Hicks “failed to offer purchasers with minimally enough shelter, inspired purchasers to have interaction in a number of violations of state looking legal guidelines, and improperly engaged in same-day airborne looking” — all whereas on probation, she wrote within the determination to revoke the license.

The observe of guiding others and not using a license could be authorized beneath what are referred to as “buddy hunts,” the place individuals concerned conform to share the prices however there is not any official information.

Federal prosecutors, nevertheless, catalogued quite a few situations the place it appeared Hicks was paid for providers, drew up contracts and accompanied hunters within the discipline after his license was revoked.

As soon as out of jail, Hicks will stay beneath supervised launch for 3 years. Throughout that point, he is not allowed to fly personal plane or interact in any industrial looking exercise in any capability.