LEWISTON — A Greene teenager, charged in connection with his participation in a poaching ring in Pennsylvania, has pleaded guilty to all charges against him there and has been sentenced to pay nearly $7,000 in fines. His sentence does not include any jail time, according to a Pennsylvania Game Commission spokesman.

The 17-year-old had been charged with unlawful killing and attempting to kill deer, both out of season and with a spotlight using a motor vehicle to hunt, and possession of a loaded firearm in a vehicle. The charges were part of a group of more than 250 filed against the teen and four men: Everett Tyler Leonard, 31, Everett H. Leonard, 59, and Carlton John Enos, 19, all of Turner, and Lucien H. Clavet, 44, of Monmouth.

In February, the group was charged with multiple counts of killing deer at night with a light, killing deer in closed season and killing deer in excess of season bag limits in Armenia Township and surrounding areas in Pennsylvania.

According to the PGC, the hunting group is believed to have killed dozens of deer unlawfully, including three large-racked bucks, during Pennsylvania’s early muzzleloader season and regular firearms deer seasons in October and December 2010.

The charges were the result of a joint PGC and Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife investigation into the group’s activities in Pennsylvania and Maine.

According to Jerry Feaser, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, the four adults have all waived their right to preliminary hearings in Pennsylvania, and are now awaiting trial.

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Everett H. Leonard, Everett T. Leonard, Enos and Jason Clifford, 27, of Turner, were arrested in Maine on Jan. 24 and charged with illegal hunting crimes in Maine. At the time of their arrest, Warden Service investigators, who were working in cooperation with Pennsylvania investigators, seized hundreds of pounds of deer meat, firearms, deer antlers, bows and arrows, spotlights, a mounted hawk and owls, a computer, documents and other hunting-related equipment from their homes in Turner.

The Maine charges against all four men have since been dismissed.

Unlike the Leonards and Enos, Clifford was not charged with illegal hunting crimes in Pennsylvania.

jmeyer@sunjournal.com


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