Posted by:
Rextiles
at Sat Oct 17 18:49:46 2009 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Rextiles ]
Notice how there is nothing mentioned about the Hogs aside from them going for 25000...
True. But there is a whole nother side to this story and that is the recipients of the hogs that also got busted. When you hear the stories of what they were being charged with and how they were harassed and threatened with jail time, then the story begins to take on a whole different meaning. While Mr. Berntson was arrested for multiple violations, there were about 3 people that were also under criminal investigation just for the sole purpose of receiving these hognose.
Like I said, there is much more to the story and I am thinking the hogs had very little to do with it... If he was just selling the hogs, I doubt he would have been busted for anything...
While I do agree with you up to a point, it would be nice to see the court records and/or talk to the Colorado Fish & Wildlife to hear their side of the story and if the hognose were merely an accessory charge brought about by all of these other violations. The charges brought up on all of the recipients might have been simply due to non-compliance with the Lacy Act and the belief that they knew about the violations of receiving illegally shipped animals which could have been any type of animal but just happened to be these hognose. After all, it was noted in the articles that it was an ad, I assume for the hognose, on KS that got the attention of law enforcement to begin with. If that is true, then one has to question why did it attract law enforcement to begin with and get them interested enough to set up a sting operation?
I do not see the feds hunting down someone who is keeping a few snakes you are allowed to keep...
That is why I believe that if the recipients of these hognose had tried to fight this based on the legality of it all, they might have won their case. But again, what was it that got the attention of law enforcement in the first place?
If someone were to pop out a lucy hog, the feds will not come busting down their door to take it away...
That is a potentially dangerous assumption to make. If the Federal Government deems that any offspring are related to the confiscated parents, they could argue that the overall sale of any of these snakes was and still is illegal and that whoever still owns any offspring might be in direct violation of the law surrounding this case. It might be considered akin to receiving stolen goods or some other kind of ridiculous charge, but I'm just playing the devils advocate at this point. Before I would ever make that assumption though, I would definitely make the effort to contact the state of Colorado and find out the legal facts before placing myself in a possible jeopardizing legal hassle.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles
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- Lucy hogs - LIRepman76, Thu Oct 15 19:32:25 2009
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RE: News articles - Rextiles, Sat Oct 17 18:49:46 2009