Crime & Courts

Game guide loses $25,000 and ATV in sentence for hunting offenses

A Wasilla big game guide convicted at trial earlier this year of nearly a dozen hunting violations, was sentenced to 20 days in jail, fined $25,000 and will forfeit an all-terrain vehicle. He also loses his guide license for three years and will serve three years' probation.

Richard Alan Kinmon, 64, was sentenced Wednesday by state District Judge Matthew Christian, according to a Friday statement from the Alaska Office of Special Prosecutions.

Kinmon also received a suspended sentence including 160 days of jail time and a $15,000 fine, which "can be imposed if Kinmon violates probation."

"The evidence at trial showed that on multiple occasions, Kinmon had allowed his clients to hunt without the proper tags and harvest tickets, guided hunters for species that he was not authorized to guide for, and submitted false information about his hunts in an effort to conceal his misconduct," prosecutors wrote. "The hunts involved the illegal taking of a Dall sheep, a grizzly bear, and a sublegal moose."

Assistant Attorney General Aaron Peterson, who handled the case against Kinmon, said in the statement Wednesday's sentence would have a deterrent effect on similar offenses.

"Guides and hunters who make the decision to violate Alaska's big game laws should know that their crimes will be met with significant fines, jail time, forfeiture of the instrumentalities of the crime, and the loss of guiding or hunting privileges," Peterson said.

Court records show Kinmon was initially charged with 34 misdemeanor offenses in the case, but prosecutors dismissed 22 of those charges. Prosecutors said the offenses for which he was tried happened as he was guiding four separate clients.

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Reached by phone Friday, Peterson said he had dismissed two charges in the Kinmon case before trial as "duplicative" charges. He couldn't comment on the others, though, because the decision to do so was made by the prosecutor handling the case before him.

After a February trial in Delta Junction, a jury convicted Kinmon of 11 crimes including committing or aiding in a violation of Alaska fish and game laws, tampering with a public record and failing to report a violation of hunting regulations. The jury acquitted him on one count of violating state fish and game laws.

Jurors deliberated the case overnight on Feb. 25, returning their verdict after less than a day. Peterson said the charge they acquitted Kinmon on was connected to a September 2011 moose hunt near Delta Junction, in which a client of Kinmon's killed a sublegal moose with no record of the hunt being filed.

"He was convicted of two other counts regarding that same hunt," Peterson said.

Alaska Wildlife Troopers became involved in the case in July 2014, following a complaint about Kinmon's business dealings. Investigators claimed Kinmon had committed a variety of guiding offenses, including using a moose carcass moved from a kill site to bait a black bear.

In one case, Kinmon allegedly told a client on a legitimate moose hunt near Delta Junction with a moose tag acquired in advance that he could also take a Dall sheep -- then buy a tag for the sheep in camp. Investigators said Kinmon then illegally sold the client that tag, in a backdated purchase after the client bagged the sheep.

Two other men linked to the Kinmon case -- assistant guide Colin S. Marquiss and a client, Pittsburgh resident Joseph Hahn -- accepted 2014 plea deals on single counts: Marquiss for taking game with a client in the field and Hahn for taking big game without a nonresident game tag.

Kinmon, however, denied the state's charges from the outset, telling The Associated Press in 2014 they were "frivolous, fraudulent, unethical and unconstitutional." His attorney, Wallace Tetlow, wasn't immediately available for comment on the case Friday afternoon.

Prosecutors said Kinmon had already forfeited all trophies taken during the illegal hunts to the state, but the case may not yet be at an end.

"He did indicate that he would be filing an appeal," Peterson said.

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