Hunter Poses As IRS Agent to Avoid Fine
LITTLE ROCK - An Alabama man has been given three years' probation and fined $5,000 after he was convicted of impersonating a federal tax agent in an effort to keep from being cited for hunting violations.
Patrick Clete Blankenship of Decatur, Ala., was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge James M. Moody. He was also convicted in December of four misdemeanors — a single count of possession of a fake Internal Revenue Service identification card, and three counts of violating the Migratory Bird Act.
Authorities say the 36-year-old Blankenship posed as an IRS agent in January 2004 when he was confronted by enforcement officers of the state Game and Fish Commission.
The game officers found that Blankenship had killed six white-fronted, speckled-belly geese when the limit was two. They also accused Blankenship of luring the geese with an illegal electronic calling device and using lead shot.
In declining to impose a prison sentence on Blankenship, Moody said the man faces other consequences besides those handed down in the Little Rock courtroom.
Blankenship's felony conviction could cost him his job as a civil engineer for the state of Alabama, and, since he can no longer legally possess a firearm, he is effectively barred from Hunting, Moody said.
Blankenship told jurors in December that, upon being confronted by the officers, he put into action a plan he had concocted after listening to a radio talk show about ways people have sidestepped various citations.
He pulled out an official-looking but phony IRS business card that he had made after downloading the agency's logo from the Internet. It identified him as a senior auditor. Then he asked pointedly if the officers had been audited lately, and insinuated that he would audit them if they cited him.
Blankenship told Moody on Wednesday that his attempt to evade a $627 fine for hunting violations was not worth "what I've had to go through and what I've put my family through."
He said he did not realize he was committing a felony by pretending to be an IRS agent.
LITTLE ROCK - An Alabama man has been given three years' probation and fined $5,000 after he was convicted of impersonating a federal tax agent in an effort to keep from being cited for hunting violations.
Patrick Clete Blankenship of Decatur, Ala., was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge James M. Moody. He was also convicted in December of four misdemeanors — a single count of possession of a fake Internal Revenue Service identification card, and three counts of violating the Migratory Bird Act.
Authorities say the 36-year-old Blankenship posed as an IRS agent in January 2004 when he was confronted by enforcement officers of the state Game and Fish Commission.
The game officers found that Blankenship had killed six white-fronted, speckled-belly geese when the limit was two. They also accused Blankenship of luring the geese with an illegal electronic calling device and using lead shot.
In declining to impose a prison sentence on Blankenship, Moody said the man faces other consequences besides those handed down in the Little Rock courtroom.
Blankenship's felony conviction could cost him his job as a civil engineer for the state of Alabama, and, since he can no longer legally possess a firearm, he is effectively barred from Hunting, Moody said.
Blankenship told jurors in December that, upon being confronted by the officers, he put into action a plan he had concocted after listening to a radio talk show about ways people have sidestepped various citations.
He pulled out an official-looking but phony IRS business card that he had made after downloading the agency's logo from the Internet. It identified him as a senior auditor. Then he asked pointedly if the officers had been audited lately, and insinuated that he would audit them if they cited him.
Blankenship told Moody on Wednesday that his attempt to evade a $627 fine for hunting violations was not worth "what I've had to go through and what I've put my family through."
He said he did not realize he was committing a felony by pretending to be an IRS agent.
