ECO Koepf (left) and Lt. Ward (right) with antlers seized during deer poaching investigation in Wyoming County
(Provided DEC information and photo)
In August, a Wyoming County man pleaded guilty to several charges related to the unlawful taking of deer, ending a months-long investigation.
In January 2024, Lieutenant Ward received an anonymous tip alleging a Silver Springs man had taken more than the legal limit of bucks during the previous (2023) deer season. The complainant suggested several of the bucks were at a local taxidermy shop. Lieutenant Ward and ECO Koepf visited the shop and spoke to the owner who provided detailed records of capes and antlers the subject had dropped off. The subject brought in four antlered deer to be mounted, two with his own tags and two bearing tags from his brother.
The two buck tags bearing the brother’s name indicated each buck was taken on different Tuesdays during the season. Through the investigation, ECOs learned of the brother’s employment, subpoenaed his time and attendance records, and discovered the brother was at work on the Tuesdays in question. Faced with the evidence against him, the brother admitted he had not hunted at all that season and confessed to giving his tags to this brother.
The subject, still defiant, now claimed that he had taken two bucks legally and found the other two dead and decomposing so he had put his brother’s tags on them. Officers debunked that story after executing a search warrant on the subject’s home and cell phone and charged him with two counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree (class E felony), two misdemeanor counts of taking deer over the limit, and two violation counts for accepting tags of another. The brother was also charged with two violation counts of lending tags to another.
The subject pleaded guilty to one count of attempted offering of a false instrument for filing in the second degree (class A misdemeanor), one misdemeanor count of taking deer over the bag limit, and one violation count of accepting tags of another. He paid $905 in fines, fees, and surcharges and surrendered two racks from the deer he took over the limit. The defendant also faces a revocation of his license for up to five years.
what were the names of the two brothers convicted of poaching the two deer?