What began as a sweeping prosecution for three bull elk poached in Musselshell County ended last month with a conviction for a single elk killed out of season and a man's hunting privileges revoked for 10 years.
Earl Russell Benes, 27, was convicted at trial in 2021 of poaching a single bull elk, despite, according to charging documents, admitting to shooting three elk out of season from a vehicle in two shootings a few days apart in 2019.
On Dec. 18, District Court Judge Randal Spaulding also ordered Benes to pay $8,200 in restitution and sentenced him to 28 days in jail on the five game violations for which he was convicted: hunting without a license, waste of a game animal, hunting during closed season, hunting over the limit and hunting while suspended.
Benes' hunting privileges had already been revoked after an incident before the 2019 elk shootings in which he ran down a group of antelope with his vehicle and shot them, according to previous reports.
People are also reading…
At his sentencing last month, Musselshell County Attorney Adam Larsen requested the judge revoke Benes’ hunting privileges for life, considering the antelope incident. Larsen declined to comment on the record for this story.
All charges Benes was convicted of at the 2021 trial were misdemeanors, but the Musselshell County case began, under a different county attorney, with nearly two dozen charges including eight felonies. In total Benes had been facing a maximum possible penalty of $278,500 in fines, as well as 83 years in jail or prison.
In August 2019 warden Randy Hutzenbiler and criminal investigator Lee Burroughs with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks began an investigation into two dead bull elk east of Roundup near Highway 12. Their investigation brought them to Benes, who, according to court records, told the wardens he emptied a pistol into a herd of elk on the road while he was driving home from a party to "make these bitches move."
Reached by phone on Thursday, Benes denied admitting anything to law enforcement.
"That's all fake," Benes said. "I told them that I didn't do it and they would not believe me."
One was found 75 yards off the highway, and the other about a half-mile further. Prosecutors said both elk were trophy bulls.
Three days after shooting the two elk on his way home from a party, Benes was driving with some people on a road west of Roundup and shot a third bull elk. Benes told the wardens he did so after someone in the vehicle insulted his manhood, as paraphrased from charging documents.
Benes likewise denied this incident and admitting to shooting the third elk.
"They just kind of went after me because of previous stuff and they wanted to get it over with," he said.
Musselshell County prosecutors filed a stack of charges against Benes in 2019, from criminal endangerment to unlawful use of equipment while hunting for the use of his vehicle headlights. Kevin Peterson, the county attorney at the time, told The Billings Gazette that Benes was looking at about $24,000 in restitution for the trophy qualifiers on all three elk.
"Typically, somebody's poaching wildlife, somebody's taking it home and keeping it in their freezer and consuming it," he told the newspaper. "(In this case) they were just left to waste."
At trial in April 2021 a jury convicted Benes of just seven charges, including two felonies.
Benes was convicted of no charges related to the first two bulls for reasons that are unclear to Larsen, the current county attorney who was not in that office over most of the case.
The two felony charges for which the jury found Benes guilty — criminal mischief and felony theft, for the state values a trophy elk at $8,000 — were dismissed before sentencing at the defense attorney’s request. The judge granted that request largely because Peterson, the county attorney during trial, never asked the jury to determine the third elk was in fact a trophy.
It’s unclear from court records why the jury rejected charges related to the first two bulls. A voice message seeking comment for this story on a phone number found for Peterson online was not returned.
Benes said he has not spoken to his attorney about an appeal.
The case set off a fury in the hunting community before it was even filed in court. In response to news reports of the killings, FWP received calls from throughout the United States, Europe and Australia encouraging them to solve the case and arrest the perpetrator, the agency said at the time.
FWP, the Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and Montana Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife put up a total of $3,000 for information leading to a conviction. After the reward money was offered, FWP got a tip with information that led to the arrest.
Kevin Peterson, owner of Matrix Targets based in Roundup and a different person from the former county attorney, said Thursday the sentence does not fit the crime.
"In this day and age, to have somebody that's already a violator of game laws, and has a pending case (for the antelope incident), go through this, how could he ever keep his hunting privileges?" Peterson posed. "He ought to be banned from hunting and fishing forever."
Benes was ultimately sentenced to a total of three years and 60 days in jail, all of which was suspended but 28 days as long as he abides by the conditions Judge Spaulding included in his sentencing order. If he violates those conditions, he could serve the entire jail term.
Larsen confirmed Thursday that Benes has six months to report to jail for his 28-day jail sentence, and has not yet done so.
FWP urges anyone with possible information about illegal harvests to visit bit.ly/mttps23 to provide details or call the FWP violation reporting hotline at 1-800-TIP-MONT.