PARIS – Both sides were declaring victory Tuesday after a jury returned guilty verdicts on nine of 29 charges against Maine guide Lawrence Perry for violating state game laws.

“We’re very pleased with the outcome,” said Mark Latti, spokesman for the Maine Warden Service. “We devoted a lot of resources to this. It’s good news for a lot of people in the Fryeburg, Brownfield area, where this group killed at will.”

The verdict was read before Judge Ellen Gorman in Oxford County Superior Court at 11:30 a.m., culminating 11 hours of deliberations over several days.

Perry, 56, of Fryeburg, was found guilty on one of five counts of driving deer, two of five counts of having a loaded firearm in a vehicle, one of four counts of unlawful bear hunting with more than four dogs, and one count of hunting a doe without a doe permit. He was also found guilty of illegal possession of a deer killed at night, driving a bear through New Hampshire, shooting at a bobcat out of season and not wearing hunter orange when he shot at the bobcat.

The jury found him innocent on all three counts of night hunting.

The more serious charges, illegal possession of a deer killed at night and shooting at a bobcat out of season, are Class D offenses, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. The other seven Class E misdemeanors are punishable by up to six months and a $500 fine.

Sentencing has been set for 10 a.m. Jan. 6, the same day as fellow Maine guide Randy Burnell of Brownfield, who was also nabbed in the sting operation. Burnell, 43, pleaded guilty Dec. 13 to 14 counts of a 26-count indictment and faces a recommended sentence of six months in jail.

Perry was one of 13 hunters summonsed or arrested after an undercover operation in the fall of 2003 in which a game warden posed as a hunter from Pennsylvania. He is the only one who decided to take the case to trial.

Perry will lose all his hunting licenses along with his guide’s license for at least three years, Latti sid.

Perry’s attorney, William Maselli, said he was pleased with the outcome, which he said shows that the jury gave some weight to the defense’s contention that the undercover operation involved entrapment.

“We won more than a third, and three or four more were dismissed before they even went to the jury,” said Maselli, who promised an appeal on the entrapment issue.

Before the verdict was returned, Perry said he was satisfied with the opportunity to have his day in court.

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll just go out of state,” he said, which he does already as a breeder of hunting dogs. “I grew up in the woods, and I’m a real hunter. They’ll never take that away from me,” he said.

Master Maine Guide Mel Gresley of Fryeburg, who attended the trial, said he hopes people realize that “all Maine guides don’t do these kinds of things.” Perry was one of three Maine guides from the area convicted of game law violations in the case.

“It makes everybody look bad,” Gresley said.

Assistant District Attorney Joseph O’Connor said he rarely has taken to trial a case in which the state had to prove as many separate charges over 11 separate days. “It’s very rare, as a matter of fact,” he said.

O’Connor said of the jury, “It’s clear from the time they spent on it that they gave it a lot of thought, and I respect that.”