Man charged with illegal outfitting wrongly accused, ranch owner says

Posted 6/2/16

Jim Pehringer, 47, is facing eight misdemeanor counts of outfitting without a license. He has pleaded not guilty.

The charges were filed by the Park County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in April and allege Pehringer received thousands of …

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Man charged with illegal outfitting wrongly accused, ranch owner says

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The owner of a Meeteetse ranch is coming to the defense of a Cody man charged with illegal outfitting, saying the man has been wrongly accused.

Jim Pehringer, 47, is facing eight misdemeanor counts of outfitting without a license. He has pleaded not guilty.

The charges were filed by the Park County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in April and allege Pehringer received thousands of dollars from eight hunters he assisted on the Antlers Ranch outside Meeteetse in fall 2013. Under the direction of Antler Ranch owner Sam May, Pehringer had been helping with hunts on the private ranch that season.

An affidavit from Wyoming State Board of Outfitters and Guides investigator Dan Hodge alleges that — based on Pehringer’s bank records and statements from May — Pehringer took money from the hunters, put it in his bank account and kept it.

That would run afoul of Wyoming law, which allows property owners to charge fees to hunters, but generally requires all others to get an outfitting license if they’re going to be paid for helping big or trophy game hunters.

However, May now says parts of his statements quoted by Hodge “are either incomplete or taken out of context.”

“I believe that there are many assumptions being made which have caused Mr. Pehringer to be wrongfully accused of illegal outfitting,” May wrote in an affidavit submitted to Park County’s Circuit Court on May 19.

“Jim (Pehringer) never took or was paid one dime for the service he performed,” May wrote in the sworn statement.

May’s statement confirms that Pehringer assisted some of the hunters by showing them around the ranch and helping them load up their carcasses; May also says Pehringer collected checks from them.

However, May says Pehringer’s intent had always been to — and that he ultimately did — give all the hunters’ money back to the Antlers Ranch.

May told Hodge he could not recall ever being reimbursed by Pehringer, but “upon further reflection and looking myself” he says he’s since remembered that Pehringer actually wrote the ranch three checks totaling $7,600.

According to May, Pehringer wrote those checks in 2013, but May put them in his truck’s glove box and never cashed them.

Months later, Pehringer became aware that Hodge was investigating him for illegal outfitting and reminded May about the un-cashed checks, May says.

On July 21, 2014 — five days after Hodge got a search warrant for Pehringer’s bank account — May says Pehringer re-issued the three checks to the Antlers Ranch. The checks, which are attached to May’s affidavit, reimbursed the ranch for what six of the hunters had paid to Pehringer.

“What the hunters paid for was their opportunity for access on the ranch, and those funds were intended to ultimately be paid to the ranch,” May says.

He says Pehringer had agreed to help out with the ranch’s mostly self-guided hunts at no charge.

“Jim (Pehringer) offered to assist with hunting to help out the ranch, because the (Antlers) Ranch had not previously offered hunting before and he had some good ideas about using hunting as a management tool,” May wrote. “The agreement we had was that if it worked out, the ranch might hire him in the future to actually manage the hunting on the ranch and wildlife issues if the ranch wanted to continue with that endeavor.”

At that time in 2013, the Antlers Ranch’s website listed Pehringer as its “head guide” and said he’d “guided hunters ... for over 20 years.” May says he and a web designer wrote all the content for the site, but he says Pehringer was not actually brought on to be an outfitter or guide.

May said Pehringer’s background in wildlife-related fields led him to trust in his help in managing wildlife on the ranch. Pehringer was then the local supervisor of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program.

A bench trial on the eight charges remains tentatively set for July 28.

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