A celebrity hunter from Tennessee illegally baits his land for turkeys and violated terms of his federal probation in Kansas by participating in hunting parties that included NFL players and members of a country music band, wildlife agents testified Thursday at a hearing for William “Spook” Spann.
Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to revoke the probation of Spann, 50, of Dickson, Tenn., who pleaded guilty in November to transporting unlawfully taken wildlife across state lines in violation of the federal Lacey Act. They also want him to spend three months in jail.
Spann, who owns property in Stafford County in south-central Kansas, killed a deer in November 2007 on land adjacent to his own after paying the landowner $5,000 for permission to do so, according to court documents. His nonresident hunting permit, though, allowed him to hunt only on his own property, so under Kansas law the deer was taken illegally.
It became a federal case when he transported the antlers across state lines to his home in Tennessee. Federal agents executed a search warrant at his home Jan. 25, 2011 — more than three years after the Kansas hunt — and seized the antlers.
Spann, who has a hunting show, “Spook Nation,” on television’s Pursuit Channel, was sentenced in February to three years’ probation, fined $10,000, order to pay $10,000 in restitution and ordered not to hunt anywhere in the U.S. for six months. He also was forbidden from violating any hunting laws. Read more….