United States of America v. Sherwood Dubrey, jr., Randy Inman, and Sherwood Dubrey, Sr.

Concord, New Hampshire, criminal defense lawyers represented the Defendants charged with violating the Lacey Act by illegally hunting dozens of wild Bobcats in New Hampshire in order to ship the animals’ pelts to Canada.

Sherwood Dubrey, jr., Randy Inman, and Sherwood Dubrey, Sr. conspired to violate the Lacey Act by poaching Bobcats in New Hampshire, transporting them to New York where Dubrey Sr. obtained false CITES tags to make the bobcats appear as though they were killed in New York, then shipping them to Canada to be sold at a fur auction. Text messages and other evidence obtained through the investigation showed that for more than four years, Dubrey Jr. and Inman routinely killed bobcats in New Hampshire, including by using bait piles on their property and on state land to lure the bobcats to be shot. They then transported the poached bobcat pelts to New York to be falsely tagged and exported to Canada. In their messages, the defendants acknowledge that their bobcat poaching is illegal and discuss the details of the scheme. In one such message, Inman confirmed to Dubrey Jr. that he shot or choked out an illegally trapped bobcat; in another, Dubrey Jr. told his father that he did not want a legal bobcat hunting season in New Hampshire because that would create “competition.” Inman and Dubrey Jr. also used rifles with scopes that could capture videos and photographs of their illegal kills and sent those videos and images to others via text messages. In total, from 2018 to 2022, Dubrey Jr. and Inman illegally exported at least 41 poached bobcat pelts.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement and the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department led the investigation with valuable assistance from the Gilmanton Police Department, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Environment Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Enforcement Branch, the Massachusetts Environmental Police, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The Defendants elected to plead guilty.