blake
Life Member
Florida Man Ordered to Pay $68,000 for Big Buck
8/27/2009
A Haines, Fla. man was ordered to pay $68,000 in restitution to a private landowner after the man decapitated a prized breeding buck.
Union County Judge David Reiman also sentenced Dustin Cole Jernigan to four years of probation and $500 in court costs last Wednesday.
The deer, named Peabody, was a 12-point stud deer and family pet from Shadd's Game Farm outside Lake Butler.
Jernigan, 21, pleaded no contest last month to illegally taking the deer, trespassing while armed and two counts of breaking fences on the farm on Sept. 6, 2008.
The deer’s head and cape were recovered at a taxidermist nearby Jernigan’s home.
John Shadd, owner of the game farm, said he will probably take Jernigan to civil court and sue for damages done to his farm. While restitution for the killing of Peabody was set at $80,000, the award of $68,000 baffled State Attorney Bill Cervone, who didn’t know that a single deer could be worth so much.
Dwight Knight, president of the Florida Deer Association, said that another deer lived in the pen next to Peabody is the sibling of a prize buck that sold for $750,000 earlier this year.
"It's kind of like racehorses. You have pedigree on these deer," Knight said. Samples of the animals' DNA are recorded, and photographs are taken of the deer, all of which could be used to identify an animal that is stolen or killed. He basically went in there and killed a pet.”
Peabody was a tame deer, and Knight said it may have played a part in the animal’s death by approaching Jernigan.
Shadd said he did not know why Jernigan and another man that drove Jernigan to the game farm went to his property the night the buck was killed.
