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Show Student Convicted In Bobcat Killings Gary Scott Steele, an 18 year old Snow College student, has been convicted of possession of illegally taking protected wildlife, a class B misdemeanor, sentenced to six months in jail, fined $299 dollars, and ordered to m make restitution for the 46 bobcat pelts found in his possesion in the amount of $11,500. The confiscated pelts will be sold by the Division of Wildlife Resources, Judge Louis G. Tervort informed the defendant, and should the receipts from the sale of the pelts fall short of the $11,500 ordered paid, Steele will be expected to provide the remainder of the money. DWR officer Brad Bradley told the court that t the pelts were presently valued at between $350 and $425 on the fur market. Steele told Judge Tervort that he had not actually killed all the bobcats whose pelts were found in his possession. He explained the pelts by saying he "found some of them along the road." A hunter may legally take four pelts from bobcats per year. Sanpete County At-torney Paul Frischknecht, the prosecuting attorney, told the court when asked for his recommendations on sentencing that he felt "the government may be overstepping its bounds" and that in the matter of restitution, the government may be asking too much. He observed that "the government might be interfering too much in the life of the defendant," In making his recommendations for sentencing, Frishknecht said Steele was "not one we need to be concerned with in addressing a criminal pattern of behaviour. It would be a miscarriage of justice if he were incarcerated." Frischknecht observed of the defendant, whose haul of furs was almost exactly 11 times the legal limit. Based on the recommendations of the county attorney, Steele's sentence of six months in jail was stayed. The Steele arrest was one of four significant crackdowns made in the past month on illegal fur trading in Utah. Division of Wildlife Resources officers confiscated more than 200 bobcat pelts throughout the state. DWR officers Brad Bradley and Harold Blackburn state that the high prices currently being brought for the bobcat furs, which are in great demand in Europe and Asia as "status"; fur coats, makes operators willing to take the risks involved in dealing in the contraband furs. The actual value of the 46 confiscated furs, said Bradley, would run probably between $16,000 and $19,000 if the market held steady. The Division of Wildlife Resources has been given permission by the court to retain any proceeds from the sale of the furs over and above the restitution. The officers stated that one of the companies implicated in the other arrests was the firm of Steele and Steele, run by cousins of the defendant, charged in this case. |