Poachers - Topic

Anyone recognize the name of one the poachers?

Trio sentenced in trophy deer poaching case
A trophy mule deer buck lays in a shed where it was discovered while Game and Fish wardens executed
a search warrant in Washakie County. The animal was in the process of being harvested
was found. One of its legs can be seen on the bench to the left.
CODY – Following an intense
investigation, three Worland residents
were sentenced in a trophy
class mule deer poaching case that
began over a year ago.
Shenae Blakemore, 29, Cody
Gilligan, 23, and Colton Lapp, 19,
received sentences in connection
with the intentional illegal taking
of the animal in Park County on
Nov. 21, 2010.
Blakemore was charged as being
the primary defendant in the
case because she was the one who
actually killed the large buck mule
deer, according to Worland Game
Warden Matt Lentsch.
Based on a plea agreement,
Blakemore was given deferred
prosecution under W.S.7-13-301
and agreed to pay $3,000 in restitution
to the State of Wyoming for
the deer. She was also placed on
two years probation and ordered
not to hunt for two years.
Gilligan and Lapp were
charged as being accessories to
the intentional illegal taking of
the wild animal. They were each
ordered to pay $5,040. Their hunting
privileges were suspended for
two years and were placed on one
year probation. They also received
one year of suspended jail time, according
to Lentsch.
Blakemore shot the buck in a
closed area on the Greybull River
near the Park/Big Horn County
lines, Lentsch said. The case was
initiated after wardens found the
big buck in a shed at 919 West
River Road the next day.
“We had a search warrant for
Tim Lapp’s house,” Lentsch said.
They were there to retrieve a
deer.
“So we open up this back shed
to get at that deer and lo and behold,
there’s this huge deer they
killed the night before,” Lentsch
said. “And it’s a good one.”
The trio told authorities Blakemore
killed the animal in the
Black Hills near Sundance, because
the season was still open
there, Lentsch said.
The case evolved while wardens
were conducting interviews
and search warrants that morning,
he said.
“So the word was out,”
“The timing was just one
pure luck things, I guess.

almost like we were overwhelmed because there was so much going on.”Lentsch said he knew the deer hadn’t been killed in Sundance and that led to further investiga-tion. “The key to the whole thing that started it is they gutted this deer in the shed,” he said. Lentsch followed up by going back out that night and retriev-ing the organs from the deer. Upon cutting the stomach open, he dis-covered green barley and narrow-leaf cottonwood leaves – not con-sistent with the Sundance area. The area where the deer was reportedly shot has more pine for-est-type vegetation, he said. “They just got a map out and said, ‘This is where we were at,’” he said.Lentsch suspected the deer had been taken around Burlington. He spent a day looking at several fi elds near Burlington, he said. He came across a fi eld with lush barley growth that had over 100 deer on it when he fi rst saw it. It later proved to be the area where the mule deer was killed, just inside Park County along the Greybull River.“I was 95 percent sure that was where they killed it,” he said. “It actually turned out I was right. That was my biggest accomplish-ment.”It was an area that had been closed quite awhile, on a ranch where no one is allowed to hunt. Consequently, the deer are much tamer in the area, he said.Further investigation gave the wardens access to cell phone text messages of conversations be-tween the three which indicated the deer hadn’t been killed where they said, Lentsch said. Upon being charged in Park County for taking this deer, they retained attorneys which drug the case out, he said.They were charged under Wyo-ming State Statute 23-3-102(d), commonly referred to as the “win-ter range law” which was passed by the legislature to strengthen the penalties and increase the de-terrence for cases like this one, he said. The law provides penalties for fi nes of not less than $5,000 up to $10,000 and the loss of hunting and fi shing privileges of not less than fi ve years and jail time up to one year. The law is only applied in the most serious wildlife viola-tions involving the intentional il-legal taking of antlered or horn big game animals, he said. Lapp pleaded guilty on Dec. 19, 2011. On Jan. 20, 2012, he was ar-rested for failure to obey probation stipulations stemming from a vio-lation in Big Horn County where he entered an illegally taken buck mule deer in a big buck contest.Gilligan pleaded guilty on Jan. 6, 2012. Blakemore got the de-ferred sentence on Jan. 23, he said. If Blakemore follows the proba-tion guidelines, the probation goes away, he said.“I didn’t exactly agree with the sentence,” he said.While the trio denied Lapp was with them, surveillance tapes re-vealed he bought gas at Maverik and they bought bird licenses all together 10 minutes before that, he said. “The mule deer buck was one of those once-in-a-lifetime animals that most hunters only dream of harvesting,” Lentsch said. “It is extremely unfortunate that a deer of this magnitude was illegally taken.”The deer sported an impressive heavy 4x5 point rack which would score about 185 Boone and Crock-et points, he said.

Posts: 10478 | Location: N.W. Wyoming | Registered: 22 February 2003

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