On March 31, 2009, Western District Court of Louisiana, Monroe Division, Magistrate Judge Karen Hayes fined Gene W. Spears, 38, of West Monroe, La. $3,000 and sentenced him to three years of supervised probation with three years loss of hunting privileges for taking a white-tailed deer illegally on a National Wildlife Refuge.
"The man took a cheap shot at a great buck," said Refuge Zone Officer Mark Guinn. "That was unfair to all the other sportsman and women out there who uphold the traditions of hunting and fair chase. Now he is paying the price."
Spears was charged by Officer Guinn after he bragged to him about killing a trophy eleven point white-tail deer some five months earlier on D’Arbonne National Wildlife Refuge. Spears indicated to Guinn that he had harvested the deer by bow during the bow only season.
Guinn later discovered that the deer was actually shot with a high-powered rifle after examining the antlers at a local taxidermists shop. The taxidermists declined to mount the deer because he suspected it was killed illegally after observing a bullet hole in the skull of the deer. The taxidermist cooperated as a witness in the trial.
Spears was convicted of hunting deer over bait on D’Arbonne National Wildlife Refuge in 2001.
