Missoula News

The Thanksgiving Deer

Guilty Pleas All Around in Poaching Case Involving Former Burns Staffer

By Courtney Lowery, 5-23-06

James R. Reger, the Billings man who accompanied former Jack Abramoff associate and one-time Sen. Conrad Burns aide Shawn Vasell on an illegal hunting trip and then bragged about the kill on his Web site pleaded guilty Tuesday in Stillwater County District Court to three misdemeanor game violations.

The investigation into James, "J.R." Reger, his brother Michael Reger and Shawn Vasell was first sparked by the article published on New West regarding Reger's lengthy account, with pictures, of the trip on his Web site www.jrreger.com. Reger's site has since been taken down (it was actually scrubbed hours after we called Mr. Reger for comment) but the full PDF of the screenshot New West took of the site can be found here.

In the plea agreement, Reger admits to retrieving and using his hunting license to tag the deer Vasell shot on private land without permission on their trip on November 26, 2004. He also admitted to taking the deer back to Billings. For this, Reger pleaded guilty to one count of hunting without landowner permission, one count of tranferring a hunting license and one count of possession of an unlawfully taken deer.

He was sentenced to six months on each count, but all of it is suspended if he pays a total of $1,105 in fines and does not violate any other fish and game regulations. He also will not be allowed to hunt or be licensed to hunt big game for one year.

Vasell, who worked for Burns for about a year before stepping down in 2002 to work for Abramoff's firm and was one of the first links between the Senator's staff and Abramoff (last summer he took the 5th in his former boss' investigation) pleaded in the poaching case last December. Vasell admitted to one count of hunting without a license and another count of hunting on private property without permission. In his plea agreement, two other charges of violations of big game laws were dropped and he avoided possible jail time. He was fined $670 and instructed to pay $500 in restitution for the mule deer buck he's posing with in the pictures. The prosecution had planned to have Vassell as a witness in Reger's jury trial, but Reger entered a formal plea Tuesday morning, averting a trial.

Michael Reger was also charged in the case but charges were dismissed as part of his brother's agreement.

Rip Cook, a reporter for the Stillwater County News was at the plea hearing Tuesday morning and said Judge Marilyn Kober admonished Reger in court for his hubris on his Web site, calling the site "disgusting."

"I hope through this crime you get the publicity you desire and I hope the citizens of Montana realize that your poaching is nothing if not a case of intential theft, theft of Montana's resources, theft from every Montana citizen," Kober said.

Reger had written on his site, "Every Monday morning I look forward to reading the paper. Moreover, I look forward to reading about one of my delinquent friends or acquaintances getting into trouble with the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department. For the fine amount paid, and trust me on this one, the amount of good press you get from doing something wrong is totally worth it. I highly recommend poaching a little or doing something minor to get your name in the paper at least once a year."

Update: Reger's attorney, Brian Kohn of Billings, said overall, he felt his client got a fair resolution in light of the handling of the case, of which he was not pleased. Kohn said the investigation and subsequent court battles were more elaborate and expensive than the charges warranted.

"It was the biggest waste of resources over such and insignificant thing I've ever seen," Kohn said.

(Full disclosure: New West, at the request of the prosecution, supplied a print-out of the documents cited above and an affadavit stating that it was a true capture of what originally appeared on our site.)

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