4 Men Sentenced for Poaching Wounded Deer

Enrique Chavez should have known it wasn’t going to work.

The way authorities tell it, after drinking some beer in his South Gate home one night, Chavez and three buddies decided they wanted to eat some deer meat. So they hopped in a car and traveled to Angeles National Forest, where Chavez took his rifle and shot a deer in the throat. The men flung the animal into the trunk of their car and started back home.

On Long Beach Boulevard, they were pulled over by a police officer for not wearing their seat belts. As he was writing a ticket for the violation, the officer heard thumping noises and the sound of something trying to get out of the trunk. Afraid that the kicking might be a person, he demanded that the driver open the trunk. To the officer’s surprise, it was the deer, bleeding profusely, being kept alive because the men wanted the meat to be fresh when they ate it later.

Seeing this as a grotesque act of barbarism--shooting a deer in the throat and transporting it hours away--animal rights activists lobbied for the stiffest sentence.

Their efforts paid off Friday when Chavez, a 38-year-old car painter, was sentenced in Compton Superior Court to a year in jail after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges.

Judge Gary Hahn, siding with Deputy Dist. Atty. Frank Duarte, said that the premeditation and cruelty of the crime merited elevating what would have been a misdemeanor charge of poaching to conspiracy, which is a felony.

“This is the man that shot the deer, he is the most culpable of them all,” said Duarte in arguing for the harsh sentence for Chavez.

Two passengers in the car, Juan Velasquez, 25, and Alfredo Guerrero, 38, received 90 days in jail for helping to load the deer into the trunk and assisting in transporting it. The driver, Ramon Espinoza, 40, was sentenced to six months in jail for his role. All four men were also ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and pay $200 fines.

Chavez’s lawyer, Joseph Porter, recommended that his client serve his community service hours in an animal shelter so that Chavez “can learn how to treat animals better.”

Velasquez’s attorney, Mike Kellogg, tried to minimize the crime. “Everyone loves deer, but this is just a case of hunting out of season,” he said.

Gretchen Wyler, founder of Ark Trust, an animal protection organization that tracks animal cruelty cases, said criminal prosecution in such cases is increasing. Her group had lobbied Duarte and Hahn for the one-year sentence.