Montana man gets 6 months in prison for cloning giant sheep and breeding it
An 81-year-old Montana has been sentenced to six months in federal prison and ordered to pay $24,000 in penalties for using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to illegally create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunts in Texas and Minnesota
GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — An 81-year-old Montana man was sentenced Monday to six months in federal prison for illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.
U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris said he struggled to come up with a sentence for Arthur “Jack” Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana. He said he weighed Schubarth's age and lack of a criminal record with a sentence that would deter anyone else from trying to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures” on the earth.
Morris also fined Schubarth $20,000 and ordered him to make a $4,000 payment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Schubarth will be allowed to self-report to a Bureau of Prisons medical facility.
“I will have to work the rest of my life to repair everything I've done,” Schubarth told the judge just before sentencing.
