Father, son plead guilty to alligator hunting charges
April 14, 2011
BATON ROUGE, La. — A father-and-son team face up to one year in prison each for leading sport hunters to unauthorized areas to hunt American alligators.
Prosecutors say 66-year-old Larry Dees Sr. and 37-year-old Larry Dees Jr., both of Maringuoin, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Baton Rouge to violating both federal and state law.
Both are licensed alligator helpers. The Justice Department says they led hunters into areas for which they did not have state authorization to operate.
The state requires that alligator helpers operate on specific, restricted lands. Alligators that are killed must be tagged to indicate where they were hunted.
In addition to the prison sentence, the charge carries a possible $200,000 fine.
A sentencing date has not been set.