Speaker 1: They were taken by total surprise, and at that particular time,
Speaker 1: it was the largest turkey poaching ring in the country.
Speaker 1: On this second episode in our Secret Agent Man series,
Speaker 1: we're going deep into the trenches of the dark Side
Speaker 1: with undercover Ohio wildlife agent Artie Stewart to get the
Speaker 1: full story on Operation Redbud, which at the time was
Speaker 1: the largest turkey poaching sting in US history. RT is
Speaker 1: gonna cruise us around in the poach coach while video
Speaker 1: and over one hundred illegal turkey kills. How would you
Speaker 1: like to see that on a VHS tape. He'll talk
Speaker 1: about the incredible al hooting of his number one target
Speaker 1: and take us right into the courtroom where defense lawyers
Speaker 1: tried to discredit his character with accusations regarding drugs and alcohol. Well,
Speaker 1: here from Darth Vader, Bill Clinton, and get the details
Speaker 1: of the coordinated bust involving twenty six men and over
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy five wildlife violations in Morgan County, Ohio.
Speaker 1: If you skip this story, you're just playing Yeller. I
Speaker 1: really doubt you're gonna wanna miss this one. He was
Speaker 1: laying on her back, leaning up against that tree. Pieces
Speaker 1: you one of my best friends of their rare and
Speaker 1: I'm going and I knew it was getting close to
Speaker 1: the cop to the end, you know, and I'm thinking, Oh,
Speaker 1: my name is Clay Nukelem. And this is the Bear
Speaker 1: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.
Speaker 1: Presented by f HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as
Speaker 1: the places we explore. It was in the early nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties and the wild turkey hunting revolution of America was
Speaker 1: in full tilt. As bird numbers skyrocketed, with one hundred
Speaker 1: year peak population numbers across the country, Game call companies
Speaker 1: seemed to be rising up out of the ground. Every
Speaker 1: home had a VCR, and like never before, you could
Speaker 1: rent in twenty four hour segments turkey hunting videos that
Speaker 1: showed unprecedented excitement. America was hooked on turkey hunting, and
Speaker 1: as the cultural value of the turkey went up, it
Speaker 1: caused a quake, a philosophical rift, a division in rural
Speaker 1: communities across the country, splitting fathers and sons, putting neighbors
Speaker 1: against neighbors. It caught good men and bad men alike,
Speaker 1: and many turned to the dark side, which is always
Speaker 1: looking for recruits. Many became turkey hunting outlaws. It is
Speaker 1: useless with all combined strength we can bring order to
Speaker 1: the galaxy. These outlaws began to cheat the system, hunting
Speaker 1: before season, trespassing, killing exorbitant numbers of turkeys. They weren't
Speaker 1: just cheating others, they were cheating themselves, causing a disturbance
Speaker 1: in the wildlife galaxy. There are varying degrees of lawbreakers,
Speaker 1: and law enforcement is dedicated to stopping all levels. Our
Speaker 1: beloved North American model of wildlife conservation only works if
Speaker 1: we a the law. In Morgan County in southeast Ohio,
Speaker 1: numerous informants had reported to the Ohio DNR about a
Speaker 1: gang of turkey slaying ruffians who touted killing unbelievable numbers
Speaker 1: of turkeys. They didn't know if the numbers were true,
Speaker 1: but if they were, they had to be stopped. There
Speaker 1: was only one thing left to do, and I'll give
Speaker 1: you one guess who they sent into the ring of fire. RT. Stewart,
Speaker 1: also known as Bob Thomas, the number one suspect in
Speaker 1: the case, was believed to be killing over fifty turkeys
Speaker 1: each spring, and the second suspect, who was thought to
Speaker 1: be his protege, was probably killing just as many. In
Speaker 1: the early spring of nineteen RT infiltrated this ring to
Speaker 1: see if the informants information was correct. Little did he
Speaker 1: know that the operation would have him living full time
Speaker 1: undercover for fifteen months. They called it Operation Redbud and
Speaker 1: RT was the lead man on the case. Here's how
Speaker 1: it started. I want to make one note about this episode.
Speaker 1: You're gonna hear a lot of bleeping. It was very
Speaker 1: difficult in this interview to not use the actual names
Speaker 1: of these guys, but we didn't want to put it
Speaker 1: in the episode. So there's lots of bleeping. So Old
Speaker 1: Phil Taylor had to do what he had to do.
Speaker 1: Bear with us we were given. I was given two
Speaker 1: individuals that was notorious for taking multiple turkeys, and the
Speaker 1: intelligence provided to us was that it was a hung
Speaker 1: out and was a manager of a bar and he
Speaker 1: lived up over top of it. I drew around there.
Speaker 1: I have a band at the time, and I had
Speaker 1: it stuff for all kind of turkeys, props, spurs and
Speaker 1: tales and had him hidden obviously. So I went there
Speaker 1: one in there one afternoon and made a tactical air
Speaker 1: right off the bat. But it helped in a sense.
Speaker 1: I always try to go to if you got a
Speaker 1: name of a local person that sent you to him,
Speaker 1: that helped. If you just come out of blue knocked
Speaker 1: on their door or something whatever, however he did your
Speaker 1: approach and you just knocked on the door and say so,
Speaker 1: you know, and introduced yourself, it's kind of suspicious. So
Speaker 1: I'd always go to yard seal or stuff like that
Speaker 1: in the local area. I'd even pitch you up pick hikers.
Speaker 1: If somebody pitchhiking, you just get me a name with
Speaker 1: somebody in that community. And if they knew him, I
Speaker 1: wasn't even better, you know. But I would go to
Speaker 1: these yard seals, get a name and ask him, you know,
Speaker 1: get talking and they say, you know, something like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he lives right up there, you know, And I was like,
Speaker 1: what's your name? So if I had a gold knock
Speaker 1: on the door, I said, hey, Jim down there, what's
Speaker 1: your name. He told me he's a big hunter, he
Speaker 1: knew gym. Yeah, So that broke topping into a social connection,
Speaker 1: even if it's a distant Yeah, this particular day that
Speaker 1: how coincidental it could have ever been, I do not know.
Speaker 1: But at the time I've seen an ad. A guy
Speaker 1: in Mcconnellsville was selling tools. So I called him up,
Speaker 1: told him I was gonna be down there and looking
Speaker 1: replacing the hunt. I said, I've stopped by air and
Speaker 1: look at your stuff. And he said, well, I can't
Speaker 1: say afternoon, I'm gonna be busy, and I said, okay.
Speaker 1: I said, well, maybe I'll stopped by some other time.
Speaker 1: He said all right, and he said where are you from?
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm from Marysville, you know, for a
Speaker 1: portrayed to be from. So I go in this bar
Speaker 1: and all the locals come through the back nbeknownst to me,
Speaker 1: I come through the front tactical air, you know, because
Speaker 1: everybody comes through the front. Everybody in the bar automatically
Speaker 1: looks you know, you know, ain't from around here because
Speaker 1: he's coming in the front door. That was a bad move.
Speaker 1: But anyhow, so we're sitting there talking. I'm at the
Speaker 1: end of the bar and I got a hat on,
Speaker 1: got a turkey on it. Camouflage and it was a
Speaker 1: bartending and we get to talking and uh, he was
Speaker 1: very approachable. Now did you know this was your target? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew this was my target. He was easy to connected.
Speaker 1: He said, to go buy something from that. I went
Speaker 1: to the bar. I went to bright. I went to
Speaker 1: the bar to hang out. That was my goal to
Speaker 1: go there to hang out. Well, based on the information
Speaker 1: he shared that day, I was pretty sure that we're
Speaker 1: on the right track. And I used to teach it
Speaker 1: Hawking College and we're not very far from Hawking College,
Speaker 1: and I know some of them people from Morgan County
Speaker 1: went to Hawking College. So here I am, you know,
Speaker 1: knowing that there's allowed to be people there might know me. Well. Guests,
Speaker 1: what the shift changes? Guy comes in and uh he said, oh,
Speaker 1: he said, I know. You said your artis story and
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I'm going, oh, my land, this is
Speaker 1: in front of your target, guy target. This guy uses
Speaker 1: your real name. First day bad and now I'm going no,
Speaker 1: but I should Uh, I think you might be mixing
Speaker 1: up somebody else. I said, was he handsome, had a
Speaker 1: lot of money? And he goes name handsomebody wasn't didn't
Speaker 1: ever much? What ain't me off, well, did you recognize
Speaker 1: the guy? Okay, but I would. He knew who I was,
Speaker 1: and he said you were a turkey bow hunt for
Speaker 1: turkey and I did, yeah. And I used to teach
Speaker 1: archery one of the things that taught. Apparently I hadn't
Speaker 1: even archer class. But anyhow, the thing that saved me
Speaker 1: that day was when I told that I said, my
Speaker 1: name Bob Thomas, and this guy set beside me says,
Speaker 1: you have a Marysville I want. Yeah, I said, I
Speaker 1: talk to you on the phone today. You're donna look
Speaker 1: at some tools. I said, yeah. I said, you told
Speaker 1: me he was gonna be busy. Here you are you
Speaker 1: drunk sitting in the barrow with it? Just it is perfect? Perfect?
Speaker 1: I mean, how else? I mean? You know this guy
Speaker 1: basically was a local confirmed I wasn't who the bartender
Speaker 1: thought it Wow, at this talent. I had his stuff
Speaker 1: like that, stuff might work out like that and it
Speaker 1: and from that day on I was never questioned. Arties
Speaker 1: deep Dives Undercover were full of wildly close calls with
Speaker 1: resolutions that will leave you scratching your head pondering your philosophy.
Speaker 1: On Quinci DNS. On this first meeting, with Target number two.
Speaker 1: His fake identity was confirmed by a complete stranger, which
Speaker 1: solidified his almost blown cover. The meeting with this guy
Speaker 1: went so well that that very night they went groundhog
Speaker 1: hunting together, and before you know it, a few mornings later,
Speaker 1: Target number two invited r T or Bob Thomas as
Speaker 1: he's known, to go turkey hunting, and it was long
Speaker 1: before the season opener in Ohio. Operation Red Bud was on.
Speaker 1: We go hunting that next morning and his raining. But
Speaker 1: we're driving around road hunting as we're coming down this
Speaker 1: road and we turned left and it's probably about fifteen
Speaker 1: or twenty turkeys on the left hand side the route,
Speaker 1: which means you've got to shoot time. We get to him.
Speaker 1: Dad ran on my side road and he gives me
Speaker 1: a gun to shoot him, shoot him. I just pulled up.
Speaker 1: I aimed at one, but off of it, but the
Speaker 1: overspray hit at one in the back, so I just
Speaker 1: ant out with truck, went and got it and thrown
Speaker 1: the back took all. You know. That was the only
Speaker 1: time they ever killed anything illegal, really, and uh I
Speaker 1: was in like flint oh Man, because he'd seen you
Speaker 1: kill one right out of the truck and had it
Speaker 1: had the estate on that try, and he would have
Speaker 1: shot it, you know, but when he run across the road.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm supposed to be a poacher too, so
Speaker 1: he was good. He handed it to me. What you
Speaker 1: gotta do, You gotta do what you gotta do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I shot it, killed it. That was the beginning of
Speaker 1: the relationship right there. This was the only illegal animal
Speaker 1: Art ever killed himself. And once you see how many
Speaker 1: illegal hunts ARTI was on, you'll see how hard he
Speaker 1: worked not to kill. He said. This was the beginning
Speaker 1: of their relationship. If you remember, from the first episode
Speaker 1: in the Secret Agent Man series, Art got extremely close
Speaker 1: with one of the outlaws. This was him. This is
Speaker 1: Target number two. Many of the outlaws RT chased. He
Speaker 1: despised them because of their despicable actions and the wider
Speaker 1: dis capability of their lives and character. He lived with
Speaker 1: these folks and saw how they treated their families, their neighbors,
Speaker 1: and strangers. But Target number two would prove to be different,
Speaker 1: and later Urt would become so close to him that
Speaker 1: he wished he could warn him that he was an
Speaker 1: undercover agent. We also learned on episode one that this
Speaker 1: is fairly common amongst undercover agents that they begin to
Speaker 1: empathize with the people they're chasing, and hey, I want
Speaker 1: to take a minute to bring up something to you.
Speaker 1: On these episodes, I'm only able to cover a very
Speaker 1: small section of Artie's career, and in this case, he's
Speaker 1: basically busting a band of recreational turkey poachers. However, many
Speaker 1: of his cases involved the commercialization of wildlife, involving the
Speaker 1: illegal sell of enormous amounts of fish caught on Lake
Speaker 1: Erie and the illegal selling of large quantities of wild
Speaker 1: game meat to restaurants in Cincinnati. These are extremely serious
Speaker 1: crimes that required extreme measures to bust these criminals. Don't
Speaker 1: think for a second that these undercover stings were on
Speaker 1: rinky dink wildlife violators. You've got to check out the
Speaker 1: book about Urt called Poachers Were My Prey by Chip Grows.
Speaker 1: Once Urt and the guys knew their leads were legit
Speaker 1: and they had the makings of a case, RT rented
Speaker 1: a residence and took up living full time in the community.
Speaker 1: When you're that deep into these communities, did you were
Speaker 1: you surprised at how much I legal activity was going
Speaker 1: on or was it kind of isolated and there were
Speaker 1: a lot of like law abiding people around. It was
Speaker 1: just these like tight little groups, tight little group, a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of law abiding people that didn't
Speaker 1: really like it, and they may have been some ones
Speaker 1: that called in complaints. There was a lot of people
Speaker 1: there that did not agree with water. They didn't know
Speaker 1: that it was going on to a magnitude of that level,
Speaker 1: I'm sure work, but they knew stuff was going on
Speaker 1: even when it was some of them guys. When somebody
Speaker 1: come rent, don't say that he don't like what we do.
Speaker 1: So they knew that the society wasn't all four them.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they thought society was. Most of the society
Speaker 1: was okay with what they were doing. That's a very
Speaker 1: interesting point to consider, what is the socially acceptable amount
Speaker 1: of law breaking in a nation, of region and a
Speaker 1: group of friends in a family. It's really easy for
Speaker 1: our doctrine to get challenged when we look at our
Speaker 1: lives without a filter of justification. I think most of
Speaker 1: us would say our goal is to abide by the law.
Speaker 1: But do you roll through stop signs on country roads?
Speaker 1: Do you drive seventy five in a seventy mile per
Speaker 1: hour zone? Have you ever stept a single toe on
Speaker 1: land you didn't have permission to be on. Every one
Speaker 1: of us believes there is some gray in the law,
Speaker 1: but there also has to be a clear black and
Speaker 1: white section, and these guys were in the deep black.
Speaker 1: Operation Redbud was originally designed to catch two men, and
Speaker 1: at this point Urt has only made contact with one
Speaker 1: of them, which is target number two. But the web
Speaker 1: of criminal activity began to grow very quickly. This next
Speaker 1: story shows that growth and all the different ways that
Speaker 1: undercover work can get rooted out by the bad guys.
Speaker 1: We was in there one night in the bar and
Speaker 1: we ended up meeting two individuals. They just talked about
Speaker 1: shooting the deer the night before. And now I've never
Speaker 1: met him before, never seen him before, so they said
Speaker 1: they just come from the butcher shop picking it up.
Speaker 1: So we get to talking to him and then we
Speaker 1: told him we know been hunting with do you know? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, where's this big deer at And he sits
Speaker 1: out the back of truck. So we went out there
Speaker 1: and confirmed it. You know, they had they post one
Speaker 1: the night before. Well good, you know. A couple of
Speaker 1: days later we was in there and he was bragging
Speaker 1: about how good he could shoot the one guy out
Speaker 1: law and the other guy was bragging a boy him too. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're so good, let's go. I'll drive. Got a gain,
Speaker 1: you got one, so give us two twenty swift. I
Speaker 1: think it was with one bullet the ware. We go,
Speaker 1: we fight here and he loses the bullet and we're
Speaker 1: in the process, I'm laughing at this guy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm dying leaving and you got He said, I'm want
Speaker 1: to knock you in the head when I slewer up.
Speaker 1: You know it was this, It's always on videotape. And
Speaker 1: he ends up killing a deer, so that now we're
Speaker 1: in good with these guys. And then it just mushroom
Speaker 1: there with other people bid involved, it just mushrooms. But
Speaker 1: now it really got interested. We're in the bar the
Speaker 1: next night. These two guys that we were out with
Speaker 1: the night before are complaining that somebody called into the
Speaker 1: game ward and turned to me in and that and
Speaker 1: their questioning me and my buddy. Oh, thinking y'all turned
Speaker 1: them in. This is a serious conferenation. This is serious.
Speaker 1: We know we're the only ones that was with him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, but y'all hadn't done it and we have
Speaker 1: done the news to us too. Yeah. Well, this again
Speaker 1: is how things worked. I had contacted my supervisor and
Speaker 1: of him. The names of these individuals are supervisor context
Speaker 1: the radio room to get backgrounds on them. What that
Speaker 1: particular time, Our radio room just had a divider between
Speaker 1: the division and Wildlife Parks and sees that nature and
Speaker 1: Department of Transportation. What do you call? Right, These guys
Speaker 1: had a relative or kin folk that worked for the
Speaker 1: Department of Transportation. They heard us on our radios running
Speaker 1: these guys information. Wow, they heard you. No, No, they
Speaker 1: heard our supervisor because you called in. I called a
Speaker 1: supervisor and supervisor does that. And they were running it
Speaker 1: over the radio, which was a private conversation because he's
Speaker 1: on the telephone. But this guy in the next booth
Speaker 1: could hear and he knows it. He calls mourns. It
Speaker 1: just shows you how tight these communities are. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And they told us that that we got a friend
Speaker 1: that works for the Department Transportation. They have a running
Speaker 1: our names today and well on the person we've been
Speaker 1: with is you. Maybe they're talking about the night you
Speaker 1: shot the dyer before did you do anything that night?
Speaker 1: We thought about that too. I said, well, it's probably
Speaker 1: where it comes from. You know, what was the able
Speaker 1: to convince him? What wasn't us? It was it was
Speaker 1: could have shot the whole thing right down to two
Speaker 1: right there. A ground nesting bird can find uncountable ways
Speaker 1: to die, and and undercover operation it's kind of the
Speaker 1: same way. It's like a little baby quail navigating the drought, disease,
Speaker 1: coyotes and hawks. There's a thousand ways to die, even
Speaker 1: fescue invasion. As a timeline update, RT spends the spring
Speaker 1: of n hunting with Target number two while gathering an
Speaker 1: assortment of other outlaws into the operation. All of these
Speaker 1: events he's filming in the poach coach, his four wheel
Speaker 1: drive undercover van, and the hidden cameras on his person.
Speaker 1: Later they'd learned that target number two was killing this
Speaker 1: many turkeys. Target number one, well, RT was playing his
Speaker 1: cards conservatively, and the whole spring of ninety five he
Speaker 1: never even met Target number one. He didn't want to
Speaker 1: push it. So RT goes through the next eleven months
Speaker 1: hanging out with Target number two until the late winner
Speaker 1: of n when in February, Target number two stay with
Speaker 1: me finally introduces Bob Thomas RT to target number one.
Speaker 1: Finally we get to to come on, well what me
Speaker 1: till he go up to his house my land. He
Speaker 1: that he's got turkey tails and stuff hanging everywhere everywhere,
Speaker 1: and then in everything, I always consider myself be a
Speaker 1: good turkey hunter in a pretty decent car. But I
Speaker 1: had to act like I didn't know what I was
Speaker 1: doing that much, you know, I couldn't be better than them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so obviously I put him on a pedestal right off
Speaker 1: the bat, you know, with all this stuff. So he said,
Speaker 1: what do you do on Tuesday? Nothing, Let's go hunt.
Speaker 1: So you came in and you just you just kind
Speaker 1: of doted on him and just put the charm on.
Speaker 1: And I've been hanging with for a year and he's like,
Speaker 1: I want to take you hunting. Yeah, two days after
Speaker 1: I met him with hunt. Do you find a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of these guys are pretty inviting to
Speaker 1: have you come hunt with him? I think so after
Speaker 1: you meet a certain criteria, after you after you confirm
Speaker 1: or convince who you really are. Yeah, it takes the
Speaker 1: fear away from him. And I think back then they
Speaker 1: had no idea that the Division Wildlife even had an
Speaker 1: under cover unit or cover people. With RT being as
Speaker 1: instinctively good as he was, and the newness of the
Speaker 1: task force in Ohio, these guys were like deer in
Speaker 1: the spotlight, poaching pun intended. You can only imagine, after
Speaker 1: nearly a year of trying to meet target number one,
Speaker 1: how exciting it must have been to meet this guy
Speaker 1: and would two days be hunting with him. Let the
Speaker 1: good times in the v HS tapes role. So they
Speaker 1: invited me to eventually to go to West Virginia. So
Speaker 1: we went out the next back up. We went out
Speaker 1: the next morning. Killed a turkey. He killed one. He
Speaker 1: killed Were you sitting right beside him? Yeah? Video at
Speaker 1: audio and I had a video. I had a hidden
Speaker 1: video in my turkey best it only had maybe an
Speaker 1: hour of battery time. I still got the best. And
Speaker 1: I had a spatial compartment back there, and that's where
Speaker 1: I carry my recorder. And then I had a camera here,
Speaker 1: so if I took my pot put my hand in
Speaker 1: my pocket, I can pretty much direct wherever at camera
Speaker 1: wanted to go. Say. But then I also later on
Speaker 1: started carrying a little eight millimeter camera for after the
Speaker 1: with it, not during the event. So every morning when
Speaker 1: we go hunting. We hunted just about every morning after
Speaker 1: I met him. I'd always have to go have me
Speaker 1: a bowel movement, okay, And that was went because if
Speaker 1: I turned it on before I went hunting, time to
Speaker 1: get out there where that everything is going on in
Speaker 1: your battery life, and your machine would go dead. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't get nothing. So I'd wait till we get to
Speaker 1: the woods, and I'd always have to go have about
Speaker 1: movement from during that time, man, I would turn on
Speaker 1: the Uh, so that way I do. I had a
Speaker 1: good hour working. Yeah, so you need to kill a
Speaker 1: turkey within an hour, yeah, and normally we did. Normally
Speaker 1: we did. Really, so how many turkeys did you film
Speaker 1: him killing or were you with him when he killed
Speaker 1: in that time span from February till we shut it down,
Speaker 1: maybe forty to sixty. Really, you were there forty to
Speaker 1: sixty illegal kills with this target individual. And it's all preseason.
Speaker 1: These guys are getting a big head start. And this
Speaker 1: is only like in two or three townships. So you
Speaker 1: take guys that's waiting for turkey season legitimately, and you
Speaker 1: go out there to where you think you got some turkeys,
Speaker 1: and you go out there and you ain't got nothing.
Speaker 1: We don't wipe them out. Yeah, that's a lot of
Speaker 1: turkeys you take out too, or three township? What techniques
Speaker 1: did this guy used to not get caught? Like, did
Speaker 1: he did he hide guns in the woods? Did he
Speaker 1: have people drop him off? Was or did he just
Speaker 1: drive out in park and go turkey hunting and then
Speaker 1: come back and throw the bird in the truck and
Speaker 1: go home above pretty much all the bow depending on
Speaker 1: our location, pretty much all the boa. We but we
Speaker 1: never did hide a gun in the woods and pick
Speaker 1: it up, you know, or anything like yet. But uh,
Speaker 1: we go out and call and then soon we shot,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd grab it and take off, you know.
Speaker 1: So so there was no elaborate ruse of how they
Speaker 1: were killing that many turkeys. They just kind of way
Speaker 1: to drive rude and hit the alcohol man he could
Speaker 1: call alcohol. He al with mouth, Yeah, do you out
Speaker 1: with your mouth? I can't do that, but he could. Man,
Speaker 1: it was it was good. I was first more in
Speaker 1: the herd. I was like, holy, holy, it's really absolutely.
Speaker 1: I have a deep, deep theory that uh, usually if
Speaker 1: anybody can barrod alcohol real good, they're probably gonna be
Speaker 1: a really good turkey hunter. I want to clarify here
Speaker 1: you can be a good turkey hunter without having a
Speaker 1: good natural voice. Al hoot. But I've never met someone
Speaker 1: with a great hoot that wasn't a good turkey hunter.
Speaker 1: And this is important bear grease stuff from episode number two.
Speaker 1: I think we probably need to have a national bear
Speaker 1: grease virtual owl hooting contests. I might work on that.
Speaker 1: I was interested in learning more about this Target number one.
Speaker 1: I pride as much out of our tea as I could,
Speaker 1: and later art would tell me that this guy was
Speaker 1: suspected in some other very serious, non related wildlife crimes,
Speaker 1: stuff that isn't worthy of mention on a classic program
Speaker 1: like this one. The point is these guys were pretty rough,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to highlight the distinction between Target one
Speaker 1: and two. Artie spoke highly of the way Target number
Speaker 1: two treated his family, his work ethic, in his general
Speaker 1: demeanor towards people. He was just misguided when it came
Speaker 1: to game laws. But here's RT talking about Target one.
Speaker 1: He was very good at what he did calling. He
Speaker 1: was excellent caller, and he in turkeys ah my, but
Speaker 1: al hoot, and he was I was very impressed and
Speaker 1: and following him through the woods. I was impressed. He
Speaker 1: wouldn't walk on the trail. You know how you walk
Speaker 1: down trails. You know, he wouldn't walk on the trail.
Speaker 1: It was always off to the off in the brush.
Speaker 1: That ain't stop because animals walk down him trail sometime.
Speaker 1: But if you're walking off in the bush, you know,
Speaker 1: not on them trail, you're gonna you know, you won't
Speaker 1: be spotted or run into somebody. You can hide. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of factors that he was had a lot
Speaker 1: of good wood since which impressed me. But he had
Speaker 1: no knowledge of how to how I used to do
Speaker 1: tax drmy work back in the day in the seventies,
Speaker 1: and I mount I would skin these turkeys out to
Speaker 1: make rugs, and he liked that. You know, RT was
Speaker 1: the taxidermist too. Man that and the poach coach. He'd
Speaker 1: have been a good friend to have around. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask RT about one of the most bizarre parts
Speaker 1: of these stories. On most cases, he openly carried video
Speaker 1: camera and filmed their illegal hunts, and these criminals were
Speaker 1: okay with it. Our t must have been a wizard. Oddly,
Speaker 1: Brent Reeves initially introduced himself to me offering his services
Speaker 1: as a professional videographer. That is a true story. For years,
Speaker 1: Brent filmed me when I was doing stuff for Bare
Speaker 1: Hunting magazine, and I've always been suspicious of it, and
Speaker 1: those overalls there's a lot of room in there for
Speaker 1: hidden cameras. Sometimes it's the biggest secrets are hidden in
Speaker 1: plain sight. You got these guys to trust you so
Speaker 1: much that you were like, hey, let's make a video.
Speaker 1: Because that was in the nineties, was when people started
Speaker 1: getting affordable home video cameras and people were starting to
Speaker 1: film hunts, and everybody was wanting to film their hunt.
Speaker 1: And so here you are, undercover wildlife agent and you're like, hey, well,
Speaker 1: what I mean. How I got him to do that
Speaker 1: was I had him filmed me for you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, I mean filming the hunt today. But you
Speaker 1: do the filming, and if I went my way, boy,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to be in front of
Speaker 1: the camera, you know, which is that what I wanted?
Speaker 1: You know. So we've done this several times, but on
Speaker 1: this particular day, we always narrated her hunt and he
Speaker 1: was talking about it. He said, said, we had to
Speaker 1: do Kiki run today because we bust them up in
Speaker 1: February or early March, and then we call him back.
Speaker 1: We had these two turkeys. News, yeah, we got to
Speaker 1: and he holds them. I think it's both Jake's. He's
Speaker 1: holding them both up, and he said, just get out
Speaker 1: of here for the game ward to come right on.
Speaker 1: You know, I think, and I'm thinking, buddy, you ain't
Speaker 1: got no idea. Archie said in the first episode that
Speaker 1: chasing meant for this period of his life replaced his
Speaker 1: love of chasing animals. It was stuff like this that
Speaker 1: had to be a major dopamine drop. He knew that
Speaker 1: in court this type of evidence would be unbeatable. All
Speaker 1: he needed now was a lot more of it, and
Speaker 1: oh would he ever get it? Here's an interesting part
Speaker 1: of Arties ruse. What about his choice of weapon. We
Speaker 1: continued hunting, and I hunted with a twenty two rifle.
Speaker 1: And my excuse for that one. I had a ten
Speaker 1: twenty two ruger with a scoope on him. And they said,
Speaker 1: what come you use that? And I said, COVI, don't
Speaker 1: crack very loud, and I said, got scoop on and
Speaker 1: I'll shoot him in hidden. I'll be like a shotgun. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I never thought about that. But it also helped me
Speaker 1: miss Ethan, which I did because you you, you hunt
Speaker 1: with these guys for too long. You don't miss many
Speaker 1: birds with a shotgun. No, no, And if a bird
Speaker 1: comes in on your side, you know, shoot it. If
Speaker 1: it comes in on my side and I don't shoot
Speaker 1: at it, something wrong with the shot gun. Your chance
Speaker 1: of hitting that birder if you miss that bird, you
Speaker 1: know more than once, that's uh, It's like, why is
Speaker 1: this guy missing this? Right exactly? So I used the
Speaker 1: torn two for that purpose. Was if I missed, wasn't
Speaker 1: that hard to explain? And I did miss too the time,
Speaker 1: but they never questioned me missing. It gave him a
Speaker 1: good excuse to miss. That's really pretty brilliant. And that's
Speaker 1: interesting because it sure seems like Brent Reeves misses a
Speaker 1: lot too. Anyway, the old twenty two and the twenty
Speaker 1: two mag used to be I don't know if it
Speaker 1: is anymore the poaching weapon of choice back in the day,
Speaker 1: so Urt was even breaking the law by the type
Speaker 1: of gun he was using to kill the legal turkeys. Man.
Speaker 1: This dude was a bad poacher. But let's carry on
Speaker 1: with Operation Red Bud, I have a question for it.
Speaker 1: Do poachers get jealous? So you you hunt with him
Speaker 1: for as many as forty two sixty illegal hunts over
Speaker 1: in one spring from February twill turkey se I mean,
Speaker 1: y'all hunted every day then, and so you were just
Speaker 1: his buddy, You were his running around with. How did
Speaker 1: that hurt his feelings? I don't think so. Now I'd
Speaker 1: go back with him everyone once in a while with him,
Speaker 1: but I mean, not hang out. Won't you getting jealous? Didn't?
Speaker 1: It was the mentor as well, So it was kind
Speaker 1: of cool that you were hunting with the guy and
Speaker 1: y'all both had this friend and we all had Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and I hung out with which I did not
Speaker 1: hang out with. I hung out with in a whole
Speaker 1: different type of relationship. Again, Artie is emphasizing that he
Speaker 1: didn't just hang out much with Target one, but his
Speaker 1: relationship with Target two was different and more personal. So
Speaker 1: now Artie has let's just say, around fifty documented illegal
Speaker 1: turkey kills with target number one and another fifty plus
Speaker 1: with Target number two. So what's he gonna do? Now?
Speaker 1: They've got to shut these guys down. And I want
Speaker 1: to hear about the actual bust. You now have all
Speaker 1: this evidence, you got video, you got your testimony against
Speaker 1: the guy, You got everything against this target subject. And
Speaker 1: what what what happens? Now? We have enough on everybody,
Speaker 1: including a whole lot more than what we had anticipated.
Speaker 1: Now we now have enough on this guy. We need
Speaker 1: to shut her down and keep things from getting carried away.
Speaker 1: We can't. We cannot let it go another year as
Speaker 1: much stuff as they're killing. And we were able to
Speaker 1: justify to extending it to the following spring. We were
Speaker 1: we accomplished our goal. We have him, we have good
Speaker 1: testament or good evidence. Time to take him down. I
Speaker 1: think they ended up taking him down like um first
Speaker 1: of June, right after Turkey Sha, you know May Turkey.
Speaker 1: They had a oh man, I think they had like
Speaker 1: forty or sixty game wardens involved in it. Really, So
Speaker 1: tell me about the actual bust. What did they do? Well,
Speaker 1: we have a command center and they call you in
Speaker 1: the uniform personnel. I don't I'm not involved. I'm out
Speaker 1: of the picture. But I'm at a command center in
Speaker 1: case they have questions in regards to the search warrants
Speaker 1: and things that nature. So they send out notication for
Speaker 1: all the uniform personnel to come to a certain location
Speaker 1: at a certain time, not knowing what they're getting into,
Speaker 1: and uh, the day before, that's when we give them
Speaker 1: the breakdown on what we've been doing. What's going on.
Speaker 1: This is the first time you've broken cover to these
Speaker 1: guys and you say, you say, hey, I've been undercovered
Speaker 1: with this guy for two years. We have this evidence.
Speaker 1: He's killing these turkeys, that's where he lives, that's who
Speaker 1: he is. And now does does the bust have to
Speaker 1: be correspond Like, if you're gonna bust one guy, you
Speaker 1: gotta bust another guy at the same time. Everything has
Speaker 1: to be coordinated. So they had a team, you know,
Speaker 1: the search team, recording team, and he about each team
Speaker 1: had five to six guys on him, and at seven
Speaker 1: thirty a m. It was coordinated. That was seven a m.
Speaker 1: That's when everybody knocked on the door at the same time.
Speaker 1: During those search warrants, they would get phone calls from
Speaker 1: other guys and our eyes wouldout answer the phone and
Speaker 1: then say, hey, the keyboardon is here. Yeah, we know
Speaker 1: we're here. So our game wardens, our officers was in
Speaker 1: the house and they would answer the phone and so
Speaker 1: would would these wildlife poachers usually I guess they would
Speaker 1: give up without a fighter, and it would it would
Speaker 1: just be kind of they were busted. Uh, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: were taken. They were taken by total surprise. Probably. I
Speaker 1: think we ended up the resting twenty six that day people.
Speaker 1: That's a major it was, and at that particular time,
Speaker 1: it was the largest turkey poaching ring in the country
Speaker 1: at that time. I don't know what's happened since. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we even had H. J. H the editor of National
Speaker 1: Wild Turkey Federation. He come up went on the raid
Speaker 1: with them, did he really? So? They told him about
Speaker 1: the raid before. They didn't tell him about it till
Speaker 1: that day, but they invited him up that we're going
Speaker 1: to have a major turkey hunting event. So they were
Speaker 1: wanting to make a national spectacle and you were the
Speaker 1: point man. Man, how many turkeys do you think we're
Speaker 1: killed in that web of twenty six men people? I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's all men as all men turkeys
Speaker 1: and deer, I don't know. I'm just guessing. I know
Speaker 1: I was involved in at least a hundred just in
Speaker 1: two spring with two people. There are other undercover guys
Speaker 1: working different people. No, well, I was working on them all.
Speaker 1: But that's why I say it mushroom. From the spring
Speaker 1: of one of those to the spring of the following year,
Speaker 1: I had a whole season there, a whole year to
Speaker 1: get hooked up with everybody else in the poaching wagon.
Speaker 1: You were just, yeah, yeah, it was just it was
Speaker 1: very difficult to keep it all together. Sometimes. Well, I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it today, but back in the time, I
Speaker 1: could look at a shotgun. You hand me shotgun and
Speaker 1: look at it. I can remember that serial number. I'd
Speaker 1: write it the mud to someplace if I needed to
Speaker 1: go back later to day or next day or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, the night or whatever. Again, I've wrote it
Speaker 1: into different numbers on different spots in the dust on
Speaker 1: my van. Once I wrote it down, I don't have
Speaker 1: to remember no more. I go to something else. In
Speaker 1: cred Edible talk about falling into a brood of vipers.
Speaker 1: I have no mercy for intentional wildlife violators taking excess game,
Speaker 1: and RT didn't either. However, remember that Art is a human,
Speaker 1: and he's deep undercover interacting with these guys their families,
Speaker 1: and he's actually developed some respect for Target two outside
Speaker 1: of his poaching. I want to ask Artie a question,
Speaker 1: and this shows you just how personal things had gotten.
Speaker 1: So what if, what does it feel like to work
Speaker 1: on something that intimately getting involved in these people's lives
Speaker 1: and then seeing them all busted. I couldn't sleep the
Speaker 1: night before knowing that in the morning his I know
Speaker 1: what his future is. It was difficult to just know that,
Speaker 1: you know, if it's been for a year and a half. Here,
Speaker 1: I've been hanging out with a buddy of mine that, uh,
Speaker 1: he's going to jail on the morning, and it was
Speaker 1: it was difficult. One was in Western and him and
Speaker 1: I was hunting beautiful, Born and beautiful, probably about nine
Speaker 1: thirty or ten o'clock to ageting. Some was up someone
Speaker 1: just shining too was kind of slow. So I had
Speaker 1: a big globe tree there and he was laying on
Speaker 1: her back, leaning up against that tree, and he'd land
Speaker 1: on that side and the land on this side. And
Speaker 1: he says, you are the best things happened to me
Speaker 1: in years. You're one of the best friends I've ever had.
Speaker 1: And now I'm going And I knew it was getting
Speaker 1: close to the coming to the end, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, man, So there again, I think about telling
Speaker 1: him it was difficult on that particular case, and that
Speaker 1: was unusual though for your career to be that close
Speaker 1: to somebody. Never was that close to nobody. Ever, You're
Speaker 1: one of the best friends I've ever had, he said.
Speaker 1: That's tough, especially when you know it's a lie, or
Speaker 1: at least mostly a lie. RTI said, he and this
Speaker 1: guy could have been friends in real life, but it
Speaker 1: was real life for this other guy. I want to
Speaker 1: step into one of the most interesting parts of this story,
Speaker 1: the trial, and I'd like to say this overall project
Speaker 1: was incredible work by RT and the whole team at
Speaker 1: the Ohio d n R. However, inside the judicial system,
Speaker 1: catching people doing a crime and convicting them are often
Speaker 1: two different things. All these guys now have to go
Speaker 1: to court and they're innocent until proven guilty. Oh man,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be fun. And our boy RT is
Speaker 1: the pivotal witness on the stand. What happened to these
Speaker 1: guys so that the main target we took him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we took him down, and they all play not guilty,
Speaker 1: which is normal. But then they found motion for discovery,
Speaker 1: which is part of the system. I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: you know what the courts systems are. You know your
Speaker 1: initial periance. I found plead guildy not guilty. Whatever, plead
Speaker 1: not guilty to gain an attorney. Attorney called foul's emotion
Speaker 1: for discovery. That entitles them to know what we have.
Speaker 1: That's when we present all the video tapes and to them,
Speaker 1: not in court, but just like to their attorney. But
Speaker 1: we wouldn't let them have the tapes. They were permitted
Speaker 1: to view the tapes with the prosecutor, not with the clients,
Speaker 1: not with anybody else, and they weren't allowed to have
Speaker 1: the tapes. So once they've seen all these tapes and
Speaker 1: all this evidence, they're wanting to make deals. But one
Speaker 1: guy pleads not guilty and wants to go to trial.
Speaker 1: So here we go to trial. By that time they
Speaker 1: make me cut my hair I had. I looked like
Speaker 1: ZIZI talk. They called me the missing link when it's
Speaker 1: working with them because I'm pretty nasty and uh, I
Speaker 1: never will forget it. When I walked in, I'd shaved
Speaker 1: up and had suit and tie on everything. I walked
Speaker 1: in and walked right basta defending his attorney, and I
Speaker 1: heard him say is that him? And he looked and
Speaker 1: I heard him saying, I don't know I was cleaned
Speaker 1: up that much. He wasn't sure. He didn't even recognize
Speaker 1: this is is somebody that he was one of them that
Speaker 1: telling me about that we his friend worked for the
Speaker 1: Department of Transportation. Yeah, I hung out. He didn't recognize
Speaker 1: in court and you had to testify, you have to
Speaker 1: speak someone the courts witness staff radar. So your covers
Speaker 1: and all twenty five of them were standing in the
Speaker 1: courtroom and chairs behind here. Oh wow, so now everybody
Speaker 1: knows your whole two years being undercover with these guys
Speaker 1: is busted. Boy, that's an awkward feeling. I bet there
Speaker 1: was on one side and we had throughout the throughout
Speaker 1: the courtroom. There was probably a dozen officers. Are our
Speaker 1: officers in there, and all the bad guys were on
Speaker 1: the left side and all the good guys are on
Speaker 1: the right. But we had officers scattered out because we
Speaker 1: didn't know what was you know, we didn't what would
Speaker 1: transpar there. You remember all those hunting videos our teammate, Well,
Speaker 1: it's time for their debut. Get the popcorn out because
Speaker 1: the judge and jury are about to watch them. You know,
Speaker 1: that's when the cross cure, you know, had his opportunity
Speaker 1: to do examine and he's that's when he started presenting
Speaker 1: some of these videos to the jury. And this is
Speaker 1: the first time some of their clients, some of these
Speaker 1: guys had seen the video and they'd heard about him,
Speaker 1: but they had not seen him. I was watching the video.
Speaker 1: Whenever I was watching the video of some of this stuff,
Speaker 1: it was taking place on the client. I can see
Speaker 1: them talking to each other like we're screwed. So he
Speaker 1: had a big name, and he was a big timber
Speaker 1: cutter and had a big name in that county. He
Speaker 1: thought that and this is what the prosecutor thought or
Speaker 1: said to us, was that he thought that he had
Speaker 1: such a name that the people in that community do
Speaker 1: you know we had it was socially accepted of what
Speaker 1: they did, and they would they would they would not
Speaker 1: find him guilty, really did. He didn't think the jury
Speaker 1: would find hilty. That's why he went to court. Actually
Speaker 1: he didn't think the jury. But this is like a
Speaker 1: wealthy guy and his family, his family was his family.
Speaker 1: He was. They actually thought that they could discredit me
Speaker 1: and thought that the jury would find them not guilty,
Speaker 1: even though they did commit some of this stuff. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: having a big name often goes a long way in
Speaker 1: jury trials and small communities, or sometimes you don't even
Speaker 1: have to have a jury. Do you remember from episode
Speaker 1: three of bear Grease, when James Lawrence was working as
Speaker 1: a game warden and he arrested the county judge's son
Speaker 1: Spotlight and Deer while drunk, and the guy got off
Speaker 1: scott free. James couldn't take the silver spoon politics, and
Speaker 1: it ended up being what pushed him away from the job. Anyway,
Speaker 1: James and I are still a little bit upset about that.
Speaker 1: Back to our t though, talk about a tense situation.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine what is going through these guys minds
Speaker 1: seeing RT the wild man poacher who drove the poach
Speaker 1: coach now on the stands shaven with a suit and
Speaker 1: tie on, showing these hunting videos. It's probably what a
Speaker 1: buck there feels like when you're at full drawing grunt
Speaker 1: stop him in the string drops. All these guys were thinking,
Speaker 1: old man, we're in trouble now, and this first court
Speaker 1: case would decide the outcome in the future of all
Speaker 1: these other guys too. This one was big, and the
Speaker 1: defendants lawyers were gonna try to discredit r. T in
Speaker 1: his character. All I've got to say is good luck
Speaker 1: with that. And hey, as a slight warning, there are
Speaker 1: some drug and alcohol references in this next section. So
Speaker 1: they had me on witness stand and they's asking me
Speaker 1: all clinic and they had a jury, had a jury.
Speaker 1: They said, uh, we'll give you an example. Some of
Speaker 1: the questions was did you ever buy my client alcohol? Yes, sir?
Speaker 1: Why did you buy him alcohol? Said? Well, might turn
Speaker 1: to buy you know, And I'm looking over at them guys,
Speaker 1: some of the guys on those things, Well that makes sense,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what I'm saying. I mean, the
Speaker 1: you know, why is that you buy him alcoholis well,
Speaker 1: might turn them by. He said, uh, you ever smoke
Speaker 1: dope with my client? Yes, sir. And see what he
Speaker 1: was trying to do was catched me in a lie.
Speaker 1: You know, had I said no to either one of
Speaker 1: them or some of the other ones that he asked.
Speaker 1: He had twenty five other people there that he would
Speaker 1: probably called a cause this witness prove that I lied.
Speaker 1: So their their defense was to discredit me. That was
Speaker 1: one of their defense. So you had to tell the truth.
Speaker 1: So when you when you talked about him. They knew
Speaker 1: you were telling the truth because you told on yourself
Speaker 1: that's right and there, and he couldn't he couldn't call
Speaker 1: anybody or to say yeah, he did do that. We
Speaker 1: were there. Let me ask you, and if you don't
Speaker 1: want me to put this on there, I won't. What
Speaker 1: about now? You said you smoked dope with him. That's
Speaker 1: kind of comical because when he was putting up drywall
Speaker 1: and they smoked dope all the time, marijuana, putting up drywall,
Speaker 1: smoking it, you know, and they handed it to me
Speaker 1: and I just put it to my mouth, and that's
Speaker 1: it's comical because I'm putting in hell, did you? I
Speaker 1: didn't serious, I'm serious. But you told the jury that
Speaker 1: you smoked dope with him. And I explained myself. I said,
Speaker 1: they passed it around when I was hanging draw one
Speaker 1: one day and I put it to my mouth and
Speaker 1: I acted like in hell and held my breath and
Speaker 1: I handed it off to him. And you know what
Speaker 1: their defense attorney says, Oh, he said, you're so like,
Speaker 1: you're like our president, and hell are you smoked it?
Speaker 1: Beating in hell? And I said, you got her? That
Speaker 1: was right? During that time. It was learned something from
Speaker 1: both slip really and I thought that's the best defense
Speaker 1: I could have said, was what he just said, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know things like that. Really didn't, I really didn't.
Speaker 1: I was the only time I was ever confronted with
Speaker 1: having to use it because I told him, you know,
Speaker 1: and being on my age, which was at that time
Speaker 1: probably been about thirty seven, I told him I I
Speaker 1: smoked about when I was younger, but I said it.
Speaker 1: I just didn't. It just don't agree with me, so
Speaker 1: they didn't question it. Now, if I had been twenty
Speaker 1: one twenty two, you ain't got enough experienced. But you
Speaker 1: were just so you were just so believable. You know.
Speaker 1: What's interesting to me and goes back to the complexity
Speaker 1: of the place that you had to live in, because
Speaker 1: it sounds to me like you you were really good
Speaker 1: at telling the truth too. That was you're good at
Speaker 1: telling a lie and good at telling the truth, uh
Speaker 1: the lie. I would usually try to keep my stories
Speaker 1: of whatever the story may be, was as close to
Speaker 1: my upbringing and my experiences in my real world. Just
Speaker 1: maybe change tell the story, you know, but I don't
Speaker 1: have to give details, you know, as who who when
Speaker 1: it was or when it was you know how it was.
Speaker 1: And it was very convincing, because I'm not lie. If
Speaker 1: somebody else asked me a question, you know, a month
Speaker 1: later about that same topic, same thing. Yeah, oh man,
Speaker 1: where do we start from here? For those of you
Speaker 1: who might be too young to remember, On March twenty
Speaker 1: nine nine, when the arc tall Governor Bill Clinton was
Speaker 1: running for president, he lit up the nation in a
Speaker 1: press conference when the reporter asked him if he'd ever
Speaker 1: smoked marijuana. This is what he said. I experimented with
Speaker 1: marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it
Speaker 1: and didn't inhale and never try it again. The catchphrase
Speaker 1: I didn't inhale became a world famous phrase. Make an
Speaker 1: artis response brilliant and relevant and true, and it worked
Speaker 1: magic on the jury. If this rt was honest about
Speaker 1: this bad stuff, we know we can trust what he
Speaker 1: says about these poachers. And as for the truth of
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton's statement, I don't know. And this is a
Speaker 1: true story, true story. Boys. Did you know that my dad,
Speaker 1: Gary Believer Knewcom, went to high school with Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: in Arkansas and that my grandmother was good friends with
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton's mother, But I hope you don't get the
Speaker 1: wrong impression of the old believer Gary Nucom. He made
Speaker 1: a living off staying sober from drugs and alcohol in
Speaker 1: the midst of a wild time, even when he served
Speaker 1: in Vietnam and the trend was to stay stoned. And
Speaker 1: he taught me that it's cool to stand against the trends.
Speaker 1: And I'm teaching my sons and daughters the same thing.
Speaker 1: And I'll also let you in and an odd Arkansas
Speaker 1: phenomena that we all know. It's not spoken about much,
Speaker 1: but even if you disagree with the Clinton's politically here,
Speaker 1: it's taboo to speak too negatively in public about Arkansas's
Speaker 1: number one son. So I'm not I think it'd actually
Speaker 1: be pretty interesting to have Bill Clinton on the Burgarase podcast.
Speaker 1: You never know, But I want to now take another
Speaker 1: slight side step and ask our t something I told
Speaker 1: you you'd hear Darth Pader and Bill Clinton. You didn't
Speaker 1: believe me, did you? In this situation, you on this
Speaker 1: court stand, and all these guys that you've been that
Speaker 1: you have video on, that you've been building relationship with
Speaker 1: years you're busting, did you ever feel h fear for
Speaker 1: your life. Yeah, not there, not there because I knew that.
Speaker 1: You know, I was protected with my guys. But boy,
Speaker 1: looks could kill I was dead. Yeah, you know some
Speaker 1: of them. Some of them are pretty rough, some of them.
Speaker 1: Some of them, uh. Giving an example, you know, high
Speaker 1: the state of a high as long as uh, it's
Speaker 1: legal to record a conversation as long as one person
Speaker 1: in the conversation knows it's being recorded. Right, So you
Speaker 1: can't leave a recorder like in a car and two
Speaker 1: guys talk. But if you're recording someone, I know it's
Speaker 1: being recorded. Therefore it's legal. Understood. Well, this particular, one
Speaker 1: particular night, we got back to the club we've been
Speaker 1: out shooting deer. We got back to the clubhouse. I
Speaker 1: forgot to turn the recorders off, and the door was
Speaker 1: open on the side van and the picture comes out
Speaker 1: that side van. Well, we didn't know it at the time,
Speaker 1: and I was inside the building and that two of
Speaker 1: these guys were outside and they were talking about killing
Speaker 1: this guy because he's one it turned to be in
Speaker 1: and we got this. They're they're planning the killing. They're
Speaker 1: gonna kill the guy. They're gonna kill him. That they're
Speaker 1: standing outside my van. And I got the video on him.
Speaker 1: I didn't know I had it on say, I've forgotten
Speaker 1: all about it. So now we hear this conversation, We're going, oh, man,
Speaker 1: we can't use this at the court at all because
Speaker 1: they don't know it's being recorded. But man, here we
Speaker 1: got a situation where we know about it, the plan
Speaker 1: planning of a murder to commit murder, and we know
Speaker 1: about it, but it's not legal. So this was one
Speaker 1: time we get my boss out of bed, like three
Speaker 1: or four o'clock in the morning. We this is something
Speaker 1: that the boss gets paid the big MUCKs to make
Speaker 1: this kind of decision, and it took the burden off us,
Speaker 1: you know, took the liability off us. So we called
Speaker 1: him up, explained to him. We got with him the
Speaker 1: next day and showed him the tape somewhere. Somehow he goes, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know what he did. I don't know what
Speaker 1: he did, but he said, let's let it ride. They
Speaker 1: were they were serious. They were absolutely serious, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna kill a guy for turning them in. And here
Speaker 1: you are an undercover agent who is deep inside there.
Speaker 1: They'd have killed you. Oh, absolutely, there's no question. The
Speaker 1: two guys that was talking about it. Absolutely. That just
Speaker 1: goes to show you the guys he was dealing with
Speaker 1: were often hardened criminals beyond poaching. And I want to
Speaker 1: say something here. This really goes to show you how
Speaker 1: much that we as a society value wildlife. Really, how
Speaker 1: much Hunter's value wildlife. RT is risking his life in
Speaker 1: the name of the North American model. It's just an
Speaker 1: interesting thought. But I'm dying to know what this jury decided.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to the courtroom with the clean shaven
Speaker 1: suit wearing civilized truth telling, non in haling RT. Stewart.
Speaker 1: So the jury or the judge presented to the jury
Speaker 1: their responsibility. They went in. We figured probably be the
Speaker 1: next day, you know, before we partything. When we was
Speaker 1: back in the prosecuting office back there, it was probably
Speaker 1: seven o'clock and they had they made a decision. We're
Speaker 1: going to the prosecutors said, that's good that if they
Speaker 1: made a decision, is certainly that's good in our favorite.
Speaker 1: We went back in. They found it guilty the next day,
Speaker 1: all twenty five of them, their attorney at contact the prosecutor,
Speaker 1: wanting to make deals. Had they have found him not guilty,
Speaker 1: would have probably had more trial, So I think they
Speaker 1: were That's why they were all there. They wanted to
Speaker 1: see what was going on. And they was wanting to
Speaker 1: see if they found him not guilty, because that meant
Speaker 1: the If he found not guilty, that everybody, everybody. But
Speaker 1: when he got so, what was the what what happened
Speaker 1: to that guy? Did he go to jail? Did he
Speaker 1: get fined big time? Probably lost his hunting license. Without
Speaker 1: looking at the records, I did not recall how much
Speaker 1: jail he went. Pretty confident he did go to jail,
Speaker 1: fine big time. I think he may have even lost
Speaker 1: the vehicle. The butcher lost all of these equipment, he
Speaker 1: had a regular butcher shop, lost these souls, everything because
Speaker 1: he was cutting up all these dear lost the hunting
Speaker 1: license for life. And I think we'd put leans on
Speaker 1: their houses until they paid the fine. Yeah, so they
Speaker 1: really put the clamp on. Yeah, it's shut them down,
Speaker 1: It's shut him down. Mission accomplished. Operation Redbud was complete
Speaker 1: and resulted in twenty six criminals convicted of over two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five wildlife violations. RT and his team's
Speaker 1: work on this case was brilliant and I can't say
Speaker 1: enough how important this type of work is in preserving
Speaker 1: the integrity of the North American model of wildlife conservation.
Speaker 1: We've got one more episode with rt and it's a due.
Speaker 1: We're gonna dive into all the wild situations in which
Speaker 1: Rtie used his instincts to stay out of trouble. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be good. Thank you so much for listening to
Speaker 1: Bear Greads. I can't thank you enough, but I will
Speaker 1: ask of you a favorite. Share our podcast this week
Speaker 1: with your in laws and outlaws, your friends and foes,
Speaker 1: with neighbors and strangers. And if you're looking for some
Speaker 1: great deals on first light gear saving up to off
Speaker 1: and lots of stuff in the Mediator store, We've got
Speaker 1: a giant Black Friday sale that starts on November. Everything's
Speaker 1: early these days, and don't forget to pick up one
Speaker 1: of those sweet Bear Grease or Believer hats. Hey. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get back with the old Standard Render Crew next week,
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to catch up with him. And
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what Brent Reeves has say
Speaker 1: for himself now