18 



My point in saying all that is just that the whole perception of 

 the people who were out there — they were invited people who came 

 out there on this hunt. I do want to say about this that certainly, 

 none of the people out there had any intent to violate the law, and 

 that is not required, and also no knowledge to violate the law. 

 Many people have made a point about why we would send in our 

 money. And if you read the letter that they sent, the U.S. Fish and 

 Wildlife Service sends to you, when you get this letter, it has some 

 very what I call heavy-handed saber rattling, if you will, letter that 

 says that you can send in this money, or, if you want to plead 

 guilty to this or if you want to contest it, then, you can face 6 

 months in prison, a $5,000 fine, or 5 years with your hunting privi- 

 lege revoked. 



I talked to an attorney, and he said look: with no intent and with 

 no knowledge, you can still be in violation of this thing; my advice 

 to you is to pay this collateral forfeiture. They do not call it a fine, 

 but it is still your money, $500; $525 in my particular instance that 

 I did pay. But I made it clear in the letter that I was not pleading 

 guilty or admitted any guilt. 



The other part of it is that I work every day with the U.S. De- 

 partment of Justice, the U.S. Attorney's office. And it became clear 

 to me when I went into a pretrial talk with the U.S. Fish and Wild- 

 life Service agent and the assistant U.S. Attorney that we were 

 going to be in an adversarial situation. My thing about working 

 with the FBI and the DEA on an everyday basis, it was not worth 

 it to me to put that whole relationship in jeopardy, so I went ahead 

 and sent this money in. 



Here again, what you are faced with, I think, is two-pronged in 

 its nature. Number one, get some sort of control over the U.S. Fish 

 and Wildlife Service as far as law enforcement goes. The other 

 thing is to really review this law. For over 30 years, ever since I 

 went to criminology school, one of the elements of violating the law 

 is intent. Certainly, no one there or very few of the people there, 

 I would think, out of all of the numerous people who were there 

 had any intent to violate any Federal law, certainly as the Senator 

 has said, they have too much invested in it. So, with that, I say 

 thank you for the opportunity to state my case. 



[The submissions of Mr. Oelrich may be found at end of hearing.] 



The Chairman. Thank you. Sheriff, for coming and bringing your 

 wife, too. And I think you brought up some valid points, what I be- 

 lieve personally should be done with this law. And by the way, I 

 have that letter, and for the members of the Committee, it says if 

 you wish to contest the charge and you do not submit the collat- 

 eral, you will be notified of your assigned court date. Under the 

 provisions of Title 16 United States Code 707(a), if you enter a 

 guilty plea or are found guilty at trial, it is $5,000. This is a regula- 

 tion passed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. It is not a law of this 

 Congress. They set the penalty. It was $500. I do not know where 

 they got this. It is a great way to make use of the hammer. 



Mr. Boe, University of Florida. Welcome. 



