California man pleads guilty to poaching elk

DUCHESNE — The second of three California men accused of poaching trophy elk and fraudulent hunting practices in Duchesne County has pleaded guilty in 8th District Court.

Robert Spencer, 59, Marysvale, Calif., waived his preliminary hearing after prosecutors offered to dismiss a handful of charges and allowed him to have his guilty pleas held in abeyance for 18 months.

Prosecutors say that Spencer and his two friends, also from the Marysvale area, set up a small trailer in the Tabiona-Hanna area of western Duchesne County, rented a post office box and falsely claimed Utah residency for years to qualify for in-state hunting license fees. At the same time, the trio allegedly lived in California full time, registering their vehicles, paying income taxes and filing homeowners exemptions in that state.

According to investigators, a tip to the Division of Wildlife Resource's Help Stop Poaching Hotline in October 2002 put an end to it all.

Division records were only able to be traced back to 1999, but prosecutors said they believed the men began perpetrating their fraud long before that.

"A lot of the deer and cow elk they shot were on Conservation Wildlife Management Unit in the Tabby/Hanna area," said DWR investigator Jerry Schlappi, who went to Marysvale, Calif., to collect evidence as part of the investigation.

Schlappi recovered numerous antlers and a five-point bull elk inside Spencer's home and another five-point bull elk outside his home.

Spencer, along with his friends, Roger VanDuzer, 79, and John O'Neal, 72, were each charged in 8th District in Duchesne earlier this year with three third-degree felonies for wanton destruction of protected wildlife and five class B misdemeanors for fraud in obtaining a tag.

VanDuzer's son, Christopher VanDuzer, 41, of Lake Butler, Fla., was also charged with a third-degree felony and class B misdemeanor in connection with taking an animal in one illegal Utah hunt, said Duchesne County Attorney Karen Allen.

The VanDuzers both entered guilty pleas in abeyance to reduced charges. They were ordered to pay a total of $3,250 in restitution and pay a "license differential fee" to make up for the difference in what their out-of-state hunting tags would have cost