Game wardens serving a warrant | John Best - lehighvalleylive.com
Executing a search warrant in the early morning hours of Sunday, November 1st, Pennsylvania Game Wardens uncovered a bunch of fancy equipment and three nice deer heads stuffed in a freezer. Unfortunately at the time of the raid, officers were without enough solid evidence to file any Game Code violations but were able to write a felony firearms charge after wardens came across a muzzleloader the suspect should have never had in his possession.
Reports indicate that wardens, assisted by Pennsylvania State Police, served the warrant at around 7 a.m. at the residence of 55-year-old Michael L. Stine in the 600 block of Orchard Road in the Slate Belt. After being tipped off about some nefarious nighttime activities, investigators were looking into suspected deer poaching and now find themselves smack dab in the middle of an ongoing investigation.
On October 25th a game warden was treated to Ring camera footage recorded the previous night at a residence on Gravel Hill Road. The clip, taken around 10:15 p.m., showed a lifted pickup projecting a beam of light and an object consistent with an arrow or crossbow bolt fitted with an illuminated nock traveling into an adjacent field.
A resident later told a warden he had received calls from a phone associated with the suspect during which the caller identified himself as Stine and said he had “shot a buck.” Tipsters subsequently saw Stine operating a camouflage side-by-side with another man and noted that he had reportedly showed off a high-end Ravin crossbow equipped with a scope that included night-vision capability. Wardens later located a blood trail near the camera location and collected samples, while another confidential source separately reported seeing two deer heads in Stine’s garage freezer that were not immediately tagged.
During the search officers instead found three eight-point whitetail heads, as described, stashed inside Stine’s garage freezer. Two of the heads carried tags from current resident mentored adult hunting permits and the third had a handwritten farm tag. As officers kept digging, they soon uncovered processed venison, a cellphone, two spotlights, and a collection of hunting equipment that included a Ravin R500E crossbow fitted with an infrared scope, a second crossbow, bolts, broadheads, a Tactacam camera, and current antlerless deer permits for Wildlife Management Unit 5C. The items were inventoried but not seized.
So far the only criminal charge that has been filed is a felony count of prohibited possession of a firearm after state police located a silver-and-camouflage Bergara Accura muzzleloader in a bedroom. Given Stine’s checkered past, he is barred from possessing firearms because of prior felony convictions in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. According to the probable-cause affidavit, he told officers the muzzleloader belonged to him and that he believed he was allowed to have it. He was arraigned the same day, released on $15,000 unsecured bail, and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on December 2nd.
As of the latest available court and agency information, the Game Commission has not charged Stine with any hunting or tagging violations. The firearm case is the only charge currently pending but it is safe to say, based on the evidence (including DNA samples they collected), that this very much remains an active investigation.
