LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The Nevada Department of Wildlife is looking for two individuals who illegally released about 25 turkeys onto the Key Pittman Wildlife Management Area, which is about 100 miles north of Las Vegas.

Wildlife officials said the incident happened on April 9 after staff found the animals at the south end of Nesbit Lake.

The wardens were able to locate a witness that saw a white truck with a crew cab towing a horse trailer heading in that direction.

During the investigation, game wardens also tracked down security footage from a convenience store that showed the truck and trailer stopping for gas before heading north on U.S. Route 93.

The video showed the vehicle had a large dent on the passenger side door. However, investigators said the video didn’t have a clear view of the license plate or the people in question.

Nevada Department of Wildlife

Investigators believe the suspects are from Clark County and are asking anyone who might recognize the vehicle or the person to contact the Department.

“Our hope is that someone might have seen or heard something or might recognize the vehicle from the photo. Any information could be key to this investigation,” Game Warden Lt. John Anderson said. “At this time of year, those turkeys would have been making a whole lot of noise. Maybe there’s a neighbor who notices a sudden drop in noise coming from over the fence. You never know what might be helpful.”

Wildlife officials said they’re also concerned about what could have happened to the turkeys if they hadn’t been found.

“The birds released were likely either domestic turkeys or wild turkeys that have been fed by humans and habituated. That brings up a myriad of concerns, not the least of which is disease,” Game Division Administration Shawn Espinosa said. “They could have any number of diseases that could be devastating to the wild bird population in the area.”

Espinosa also said those types of turkeys “have no idea how to survive in the wild” since they have been pen-raised and/or fed by humans their entire life.

Anyone with information can contact the Nevada Department of Wildlife through the Operation Game Thief hotline at (800) 992-3030 or by using the NDOW Tip app. The app can be downloaded for free through the Google Play Store, iTunes App Store, or by visiting the agency’s website.

A Nevada prisoner is accused of addressing letters to a federal judge in Las Vegas, threatening to send someone to kidnap and torture the judicial officer and “have my people kill whatever you hold dearly first,” according to a criminal complaint.

A federal grand jury indicted Hadari Stallworth this week on five charges of threatening a U.S. judge, mailing threatening communications, false information and hoaxes, court records show.

The 28-year-old is currently being housed in the Ely State Prison after convictions in Clark County crimes.

And he was serving a two-to-five year prison sentence — for robbery and kidnapping — when he allegedly sent the letters to a Las Vegas courthouse and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022, which were addressed to the judge, who wasn’t identified in the complaint.

Stallworth is accused of sending a letter in June of that year to the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, threatening the judge with killing their “pets, kids, grandkids, husband…,” the complaint said.

The perpetrator, the letter said, would put a “2-inch cut in your trachea,” according to the complaint.

In September 2022, Stallworth allegedly sent a second letter addressed to the Las Vegas judge, which made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“You… are… dead,” the letter said. “I’m gonna get your houses set on fire with your bodies still in it,” the complaint added.

Using anti-Semitic language, Stallworth allegedly wrote that the judge’s death would be like those that occurred during the Holocaust, the complaint said.

Stallworth is accused of sending two more letters to the federal courthouse in Las Vegas, falsely stating that the correspondence contained anthrax and a blowfish toxin, the complaint said.

Nevada Department of Correction records show that Stallworth has been serving prison sentences for the past decade for crimes in Clark County, essentially his entire adult life.

Stallworth is due in federal court for an initial appearance on April 30, records show.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.

The Nevada Supreme Court upheld a 2021 state ban on ghost guns Thursday, overturning a lower-court decision that declared the law unconstitutional for being vague. Ghost guns are guns without serial numbers and are usually assembled by the user.

Justice Lidia S. Stiglich authored the opinion of the court. Stiglich ruled that the law’s definition of “unfinished frame or receiver” was not unconstitutionally vague. Stiglich noted that the court can consult ordinary dictionaries, specialized dictionaries and industry association publications to understand words with technical or special meanings. After consulting several dictionaries and trade definitions, Stiglich concluded that the term unfinished frame or receiver and the words in its definition are “readily ascertainable through their ordinary usage and understandings common to the heavily regulated subject of firearms.”

Additionally, Stiglich found that the statute does not pose a risk of arbitrary enforcement by the government. Stiglich found that the statute is a general intent statute, meaning that a person has a guilty state of mind to be convicted of a criminal offense if they intend to perform a specific act that led to the crime. Stiglich noted that to convict someone under this law:

[T]he State must show that the defendant willfully sold, offered to sell, transferred, possessed, purchased, transported, or received an unfinished frame or receiver and that the defendant knew that the object at issue had the objective characteristics of being intended to be turned into a firearm.

Because the law requires a general intent, Stiglich found no risk of arbitrary enforcement.

In response to the court’s decision, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford stated:

The ban on ‘ghost guns’ is one of the most impactful pieces of legislation that we have seen come through Carson City. [The] decision … is a win for public safety and creates sensible, practical measures to protect Nevadans from violent crime.

In 2021, the Nevada legislature passed AB 286. The law banned transactions involving incomplete gun frames and receivers and unserialized weapons, with exceptions for antique guns and collectors’ items. That year, a US District Court also upheld the law, ruling that it did not violate the Second Amendment.

This is not the only recent litigation over government regulation of ghost guns. In November 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) lacked authority to adopt a final rule aimed at limiting ghost guns. The Biden administration appealed this decision to the US Supreme Court.