Attorneys/Judges
| Prosecutor(s): | Molly Chilson | | Defense(s): | Pamela Mackey |
Thirty-two bison shot
South Park, CO (US)Incident Date: Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008
County: Park
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Jeffrey Scott Hawn
Case Updates: 2 update(s) available
When 32 bison lumbered across a fence that separated their owners' vast, wind-swept expanse of land from a neighboring ranch in March, they ended up dead.
Some fell where they were shot. Others scattered, galloping for miles before they succumbed in the snow.
They were victims, contend the bison's owners, of a murder plot hatched by the neighbor, a Texan frustrated by what he called the repeated trespassing of the herd onto his land.
Law enforcement officials are closemouthed, saying only that they are investigating.
At issue, said Park County Undersheriff Monte Gore, is whether the culprit violated Colorado's century-old open-range law, which says livestock may go pretty much where they please.
Throughout the West, many states still adhere to the open-range principle, a throwback to the 1800s that says it is not a rancher's responsibility to keep livestock fenced in -- it's everyone else's job to keep them out.
If you don't want someone else's cow on your land, the law goes, build a fence. If the cow crosses your fence, you can lock it up until its owner retrieves it, and you can sue the owner for damages. But you can't kill it, said Rick Wahlert, Colorado brand commissioner.
In Colorado's high country, transplanted city dwellers often don't understand, Wahlert said.
"They ask why should they have to fence their property?" he said. "I say, 'OK, fine. You lived in town. Say you had a swimming pool. Did you let the neighbor kids run through? How did you keep them out? You put up a fence. It's the same concept.' "
In the mountain valley at 10,000 feet known as South Park -- for which the Comedy Central animated series is named -- ranchers are doing a slow boil over what they consider a terrible breach of the local code of ethics demanding that neighbors help each other out.
"You work together," said Timm Armstrong, who runs a herd of longhorn cattle, as well as a truck stop at the edge of town.
By most accounts, Monte Downare and his father, Vaughn, didn't have that kind of relationship with Jeff Hawn. The Downares have lived and ranched here a long time, according to locals; Hawn, who lives in Austin, Texas, bought his 362-acre Colorado ranch in 1995.
When he arrived, Hawn built a fence to keep out intruding livestock, according to a lawsuit he has filed against the Downares.
Colorado law spells out what constitutes such a fence: three strands of barbed wire, with posts set 20 feet apart, "sufficient to turn away ordinary horses and cattle."
Hawn's fence met those requirements. But it didn't stop the bison, according to his suit, filed days before the slaughter.
"On numerous separate occasions, herds of buffalo have broken through the fence and stampeded onto the [Hawn] property to graze on the grass," the suit charges. They ate his grass, killed hundreds of trees, knocked out a satellite dish and turned his land into "a feedlot," according to his complaint, which included a photo of three bison strolling past Hawn's deck.
Bison are very difficult to control, said Dave Carter, executive director of the National Bison Assn., based in Colorado. Notorious for their power and strong wills, bison can run fast and jump high -- clearing a 6-foot-high fence from a standing position.
It's particularly hard to contain them during winters like the one South Park just experienced, during which enormous snowdrifts can bury or knock down fences -- leaving the bison free to step right over them, Carter said.
Neither the Downares nor Hawn returned calls seeking comment. Gore said snowdrifts didn't appear to be a factor in this case.
According to Hawn's suit, the Downares refused to pay for the damage or prevent their buffalo from trespassing.
This spring, the Downares contend in their counterclaim, Hawn and his Denver lawyer, Stephen Csajaghy, "conspired to hire" hunters to shoot the animals.
On March 19, the carcasses were found on the Hawn ranch, other private property and nearby federal lands. The sheriff quickly rounded up 14 hunters who were camping on Hawn's property. They said they had been given permission to shoot the bison, but who gave them that permission is part of the investigation, Gore said.
Throughout Park County, where a stray cow or wandering bison is hardly an oddity, people fumed. At the Silverheels Truck Stop, a local hangout decorated with a stuffed mountain lion and other wildlife, Gerald Steinsiek, 53, recalled the time his neighbor's buffalo knocked down his fence.
"They just hit it and kept going. It didn't slow them down at all," he said.
"I've had them on my property," said Bob Agosti, 60, a plumber and regular at the Silverheels. "It's not a big deal. I don't care if they're on my property."
He supposed that Hawn had the right to take a different view. "But why did he have to take matters into his own hands?" Agosti said. "It's just not something you'd do."
Another sticking point is the fact that the shooters didn't harvest the meat.
"A hunter won't shoot it and leave it," said Armstrong, the owner of the Silverheels. He noted that the deaths of the bison -- valued at up to $2,500 each -- represent the loss of several generations in the herd.
"They're assassins, not hunters," Agosti said. "You go out to a field and walk up and shoot it: That's hunting? Come on. I hunt elk and deer. If I don't consume it, I won't shoot it. To let it rot . . . there's no honor."
For weeks, locals have waited as authorities investigated the case. Gore, the undersheriff, defended the amount of time it had taken, saying it was too important a case to move quickly.
"There's a lot of people holding their breath now as to how we address this," Gore said.
But they're also growing impatient. "What is taking so long?" South Park resident Wendy Grumet asked in a letter to the editor of the Flume, a local newspaper. "The failure to prosecute this crime will set a shoddy precedent for others to execute animals that happen to cross over the other side of the fence."
Grumet continued: "If [Hawn] did not want to have a home where the buffalo roam, he should have stayed in Texas."
Case UpdatesJeff Hawn, a software executive who owns a luxury home outside this old Colorado mining town, warned his neighbor, rancher Monte Downare, to keep his bison from roaming onto his property or risk having them hunted. Hawn later sued Downare alleging the bison had turned his land in South Park into a "feed lot."
Nine days later, shots rang out on the snow-covered plains ringed by mountains. The remains of 32 bison – 20 of them close to delivering calves – were strewn across Hawn's property and nearby land. Deputies learned that 14 hunters from southern Colorado had a letter from Hawn giving them permission to hunt bison on his property.
Now Hawn – the president and CEO of Seattle-based Attachmate who lives in Austin, Texas – finds himself in criminal court, charged with theft and 32 counts of aggravated animal cruelty. The case has outraged many in Fairplay, a town of about 700 founded by gold prospectors in 1859. It's also drawn attention to Colorado's "open range" laws and the local politics of fencing.
Prosecutors on Monday will try to convince a judge there's enough evidence to go to trial. Hawn is represented by Pamela Mackey, the lawyer who defended Kobe Bryant against sexual assault charges at a Vail-area resort in 2003 that were later dropped.
Hawn didn't respond to two messages left on his cell phone or another left with a spokeswoman at Attachmate. Mackey didn't return telephone calls or an e-mail seeking comment.
Another Hawn attorney, Steve Csajaghy, said he couldn't discuss the case. But he told the Rocky Mountain News in March that Hawn "had no other choice" but to get rid of the bison to protect himself.
Downare didn't return two telephone messages seeking comment, and District Attorney Molly Chilson said she couldn't discuss the case in advance of the hearing.
Since posting a $15,000 bond in May, Hawn has needed court permission for business travel as well as a Cayman Islands vacation with his wife and four children.
In his Feb. 25 letter inviting the hunters, Hawn said they could hunt animals on his property or remove them live.
Investigators believe the hunters intended to use meat and hides from 10 of the bison slain March 19 – but that as many as 16 had been killed and left to rot weeks before. They also believe Hawn may have shot some himself. According to court documents, 10 of the carcasses were in plain view of his house and some of the bullets they recovered were similar to test rounds fired from a rifle found inside the home.
It's hard to find anyone here sympathetic to Hawn. Downare's family is well-established, and people in Fairplay, the county seat, and tiny Hartsel, the closest town to his ranch, are quick to defend him. They bemoan the waste of so much bison meat and talk about one of the feud's central issues – fences.
Miles of barbed-wire fences line area roads and property lines. Unlike rural areas elsewhere in the country, Colorado and most other Western states are "open range," where livestock can roam wherever they wish. If you don't want animals on your property, build a fence to keep them out. Ranchers don't have to fence their animals in.
Given the state's population growth and traffic, Colorado brand commissioner Rich Wahlert, who works to prevent livestock theft and regulates stray livestock, said most ranchers still try to fence their livestock. Since buffalo are stouter than cattle, he said, they can break through the minimal three-barbed-wire fencing required by Colorado law. Many buffalo producers build taller and stronger fences to keep animals in even though they aren't required to.
Wahlert said livestock are bound to escape from any kind of fence and that Downare has a good track record of responding quickly to calls of stray buffalo, which can weigh a ton and jump six feet.
In the civil suit Hawn filed on March 10, he said his barbed-wire fences were sturdy and similar to others in the county. The suit seeks payment for damage caused by Downare's buffalo.
Hawn said the bison knocked his satellite television dishes off-line and left dung, tracks and hair on "pristine pasture on rolling hills." He included a photograph of three bison walking past his deck as evidence.
Park County investigators allege that Hawn initially paid one of the hunters $2,000 to build corrals to capture and remove the buffalo live. When he asked for more money, Hawn allegedly said that if the hunters didn't remove the animals in one week he would invite paying hunters to kill the animals. Ranches that raise bison for meat sometimes allow people to hunt them for about $2,000 a head.
In Downare's victim impact statement, he said Hawn's invitation to the hunters was "crazy." When asked on the form if he would like any special conditions imposed on Hawn, besides paying for the lost bison, valued at $77,000, Downare wrote: "I would like him to fence his property good and leave my livestock alone."
Downare's bison were killed during a harsh winter in South Park, an area that lent its name to the animated television series. Resident Cindi Raymer noted that roaming animals are a given and were especially so last winter, when snow covered many fences.
Raymer, a bartender at the Hob Cafe & Saloon, had a simple answer when talking with owner Violet Jacobus about whether the area can stay open range with an influx of retirees and second-home owners.
"Just fence the people out," she said with a laugh. | Source: Associated Press - Sept 11, 2008
Update posted on Sep 11, 2008 - 11:51PM |
An arrest warrant accuses a Texas man of animal cruelty and theft in the slaughter of 32 bison on a Colorado ranch in March.
The warrant issued Thursday names Jeffrey Scott Hawn of Austin, who controls the ranch where the bison were shot.
An Austin listing for Hawn repeatedly rang busy Thursday and his attorney did not immediately return a telephone message.
The bison were found in late March strewn across hundreds of snow-covered acres about 85 miles southwest of Denver.
Sheriff Fred Wegener has said they had wandered off the ranch of their owners, Monte and Tracy Downare.
Hawn had filed a lawsuit a few days earlier saying the Downares' bison had been stampeding onto his property and damaging or destroying trees, fences and a satellite dish.
Steve Csajaghy (shy-AW'-ghee), Hawn's Denver lawyer, has said his client had no choice but to get rid of them.
"He had to protect himself at that point," Csajaghy said in March.
Monte Downare filed suit a month after the bison were found claiming 14 hunters were hired to kill them. The lawsuit claims "outrageous conduct" that caused emotional distress.
Wegener has said deputies questioned about a dozen hunters who claimed they had permission to shoot the bison. Their names haven't been released and Wegener hasn't said whether they will face charges.
Bison are considered a domesticated species in Colorado and are not covered by hunting and wildlife laws.
Hunts are allowed on private ranches, and Downare has advertised organized bison hunting on his ranch in the past.
Hawn is a 50 percent shareholder in a company that owns ranch land in Park County, but it's unclear whether that company owns the ranch where the bison were found or Hawn himself does.
Hawn faces 32 counts of animal cruelty and one count each of theft and criminal mischief. | Source: Forbes - May 9
Update posted on May 9, 2008 - 4:09PM |
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