A federal judge came down hard on two men, ordering them to pay a combined $86,000 in fines and restitution for an illegal whitetail deer guiding and hunting operation in Fayette County during the 2021 and 2022 seasons.
30-year-old Austin Elrod of Somerville, Tennessee, was sentenced on October 21st to one year of probation and a five-year suspension of his hunting privileges. Senior U.S. District Judge J. Daniel Breen also ordered Elrod to pay a $40,000 fine and $20,000 in restitution. Thomas Boswell, 39, of Barnesville, Georgia, was sentenced back in July to pay a $15,000 fine and $11,000 in restitution, along with an 18-month suspension of his hunting privileges.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee, an investigation found that Elrod was guiding whitetail deer hunts in Fayette County without any form of guiding license. Putting his apparent digital marketing skills to work, he went on to advertise the illegal hunts on Facebook and was found to have killed up to seven deer from those referrals. Thomas Boswell just so happened to be one of the out-of-staters that signed up through his social media campaign and ended up killing five of those seven deer, according to authorities. The animals were then transported to Georgia, adding another level of complexity to the case that now involved the feds.
Because those animals were transported across state lines and just so happened to have been killed inside a designated Chronic Wasting Disease zone, the two men were charged in violation of the Lacey Act, which carries penalties beyond those available under state law alone.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office is a full-service federal prosecution office, and we have the ability and intention to charge any violations of federal law, no matter where they occur in the Western District of Tennessee,” U.S. Attorney D. Michael Dunavant said. “These prosecutions demonstrate our commitment to upholding the rule of law, and to pursuing any cases that harm and impact our rural communities.”
Assistant Director Doug Ault of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement also took the opportunity to chime in on the actions of the two chuckleheads.
“America’s wildlife belongs to all of us,” Ault said. “Those who take it illegally put their own interests ahead of everyone who hunts responsibly, values wildlife, and wants healthy populations for the next generation.”
The case was jointly investigated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Assistant U.S. Attorney Immanuel Chioco prosecuted the case.
