U.S. poacher ordered to repeatedly watch Bambi got harsher sentence in Missouri thanks to alleged Sask. crimes

An American poacher's alleged hunting violations in Saskatchewan factored into a sentence he received in the United States.

In December, a Missouri judge ordered David Berry, Jr. to watch the movie Bambi at least once per month while in prison for his role in a deer poaching ring.

Berry was also sentenced to a year in jail.

Rare approach to sentencing

Lawrence County prosecuting attorney Don Trotter said the judge took into account that Berry might never answer to his eight charges in Saskatchewan.

"But since Mr. Berry was here in the United States, they were not going to be able to extradite him back to Canada on these type of charges," he said. "So we were just going to try to incorporate any kind of punishment that we did here to include things for Canada."

Trotter noted Berry ended up being convicted of a felony and will serve his full sentence.

"He'll be sitting here for a full year in our jail," Trotter said. "And our jail is a very difficult, or it's a very tough place to be incarcerated."

It's just the level of poaching that this man did was beyond anything that's comprehensible.- Don Trotter

But Trotter said he's unaware of another case where Missouri courts factored in the unlikely event of extradition into a sentence.

"Rarely, if ever. I don't know," he said. "I couldn't think right off the top of my head of another time this has ever happened, anything like this."

"Poaching is not a big offence here, really. It's just the level of poaching that this man did was beyond anything that's comprehensible."

Uncovering the poaching ring

The Missouri Department of Conservation said it was one of the state's largest-ever poaching investigations, involving about 100 state, federal and Canadian wildlife officers over several years.

Berry was one of 14 Missouri residents connected to over 230 charges that occurred in 11 Missouri counties, in addition to other wildlife offences in Kansas, Nebraska and Saskatchewan.

Investigators estimated the group was responsible for killing hundreds of trophy bucks, mostly for their head and antlers, leaving the bodies of the deer to waste.

"Normally, when people are poaching around here they're usually trying to get something to eat," he said. "We don't look at that near as bad. But this was just . . . he was just killing to be killing."

Berry faces eight illegal hunting charges for incidents in the Rosetown area in 2016.

He is one of two Missouri men accused of illegally shooting some white-tailed deer, an antelope, a coyote and a badger while pretending to be duck hunters.

Two Saskatchewan men were charged with helping the Missouri men store and process the illegally harvested wildlife, as well as purchasing a tag to help the poachers take the antlers across the border.

The Saskatchewan men were fined $6,250 and received a one-year hunting suspension.

Berry faces potential fines in excess of $15,000 and a hunting suspension for the Saskatchewan charges, if he returns to Canada.

Berry and his father, David Berry, Sr. have had their hunting, fishing and trapping privileges revoked for life by the Missouri Conservation Commission.

But Trotter noted Berry is accused of committing more deer hunting violations between the 2016 incidents and his incarceration last year.

He said new charges were pending in another county.

Bambi sentence judge's idea

As for ordering Berry to repeatedly watch Bambi while in jail, Trotter said that wasn't his ideabut he supports it.

"The judge came up with that all by himself," he said. "Part of it was he was just trying to reach this guy in some kind of emotional level for what he did."

"I thought it was very applicable. Obviously, somebody who claims to have killed 1,500 deer illegallyand we know of approximately 600, and these are all trophy deerobviously, he doesn't have any kind of emotion at all when he kills these animals. And we were trying to reach him some way."