Former Alaska Director of Wildlife Conservation Corey Rossi has admitted to knowingly breaking state bear hunting laws, but he's getting off easier than rocker Ted Nugent, who claims he blundered into an illegal hunt.
A federal judge in April fined Nugent $10,000 and banned him from hunting in Alaska or on any national forest for a year after he admitted he wounded one bear during in a hunt in the state's Panhandle and later killed another. Rossi's hunt gone bad will cost only half as much. What Nugent did would have been legal in most of Alaska, but broke a regulation unique to Southeast Alaska.
What Rossi did broke laws on guiding and hide sealing that apply statewide, but a state court judge on Friday let him off relatively easy. Alaska State Troopers reported the 52-year-old former predator-control agent for the federal government was fined $10,000, but half of the fine was suspended.
According to trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters, Rossi was also given 60 days in jail, but that sentence was suspended in full. What all of this means is that if Rossi behaves himself he will need to pay the state only $5,000 as the penalty for his crimes. He could, however, go to jail and be forced to pay the rest of the fine if caught poaching again while on unsupervised probation for three years. Rossi was originally charged with 12 counts of illegal hunting related to a 2008 bear shoot on the north side of Cook Inlet. He quit as wildlife director when the charges were announced in January.
Plea agreements between his attorney and attorneys for the state have been underway for months. Feisty Fairbanks litigator Bill Satterberg managed to cut a deal that cost Rossi some cash, but kept him out of jail and enabled him to keep his guide license, which could provide Rossi with at least one job now that he is no longer employed by the state.
The court, according to troopers, suspended Rossi's guide license for three years, but then waived two-thirds of that part of the sentence, too. All of this came after Rossi agreed to plead guilty to two of the 12 counts originally lodged against him. He conceded he was guilty of falsifying a bear-sealing certificate and acting unlawfully as a big game guide.
There was no word on the future plans of Rossi, a friend of the family of former Gov. Sarah Palin. Rossi fought his way into power at the state Department of Fish and Game, even as some of the state's top wildlife biologists screamed that he lacked the qualifications required of a beginning wildlife biologist. Gov. Sean Parnell, Rossi's new ally, ignored those complaints.
Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com