Troy Lee Gentry won't be showin' his face in these parts anymore.
The 39-year-old half of country music duo Montgomery Gentry pleaded guilty Monday to a misdemeanor charge of falsely registering a bear he shot and killed as having been wild, when he actually took the animal down within the confines of a Minnesota wildlife preserve.
Gentry made the deal last week to avoid a trial, which was scheduled to start today in U.S. District Court in Duluth, Minnesota. Prosecutors also dropped a charge of violating the Lacey Act, which prohibits the possession or transportation of illegally obtained or registered wildlife, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune.
U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson ordered the "If You Ever Stop Loving Me" singer to pay a $15,000 fine, give up the bear's hide that he had kept as a trophy and refrain from hunting, fishing or trapping in the state of Minnesota for five years.
Gentry shot a 600-pound black bear named Cubby with a bow and arrow in 2004 while inside the 80-acre Sandstone National Wildlife Refuge. He has to give up the bow, as well, along with the prize hide.
"I did participate in improperly tagging the animal I shot, without realizing the seriousness of what I was doing," Gentry said in a statement. "For that, I am truly sorry. I relied on the experts around me for guidance, and I regret that today.
"Not so much because I was fined and punished, but because it appears that I don't have respect for the law. This has been a humbling experience for me, and one which I deeply regret."
The Tennessee resident—who has a Minnesota hunting license—testified in court that he and his hunting guide, Lee Marvin Greenly, owner of the Minnesota Wildlife Connection, came up with the plan to misidentify Cubby together by claiming that the bear had been shot in the wild six miles east of Sandstone, rather than inside its own three-acre compound.
Gentry said that he and Greenly planned to stage and videotape the hunt on the preserve, presumably being careful not to let the electric fence get in the way.
Federal officials said that Gentry paid Greenly $4,650 for the bear.
Meanwhile, Greenly pleaded guilty Monday to two felony counts of helping hunters kill bears within the Sandstone National Wildlife Refuge at specially set up bait stations. He's facing a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $400,000 fine and the forfeiture of the all-terrain vehicles he and his employees used to reach the illegal stations.
"He's glad to get it over with," Gentry's attorney, Ron Meshbesher, told the Twin Cities' Pioneer Press. "Obviously, he's saddened by all the publicity in this case, which inferred all kinds of improper conduct."
According to the Pioneer Press, Gentry's Nashville agent had tried to pawn the blame for the incident off on Greenly, setting online chat rooms abuzz with talk of whether Gentry had knowingly killed a captive animal.
"I just don't get it. A guy with all his money could afford a true, fair chase trophy hunt and he shoots a [sic] animal in a pen. As an avid hunter this really disgusts me. Fair chase is the only way hunting should be allowed," a Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, man wrote in September on a Montgomery Gentry forum maintained by Topix.net.
Then there were the Gentry supporters, such as the Southfield, Michigan, fan who wrote that one "can safely say he doesn't seem like the kind of guy like killing a tame bear knowingly and willingly. He wouldn't risk his career for it."
Well, he probably didn't mean to risk his career, but now he has to face the Internet pundits who don't want to buy his records and the apparently avid hunters who are questioning what kind of "real man" shoots a fenced-in bear.
"To anyone who is a hunter, and there are many up here and down south, the fact that he hunted a tame animal, tell's [sic] us something about that person," weighed in a man with the user name Sotadude from Minneapolis. "He either needed the bear to show he was a 'true' outdoorsman, or he was trying to impress somebody with a 'fish' story, 'cept with a bear."
Okay. But, as his lawyer pointed out, Gentry is only being punished for misclassifying his kill, not for killing unlawfully.
"It was emphasized by the judge…that he was merely charged with an improper tagging where the bear was killed," Meshbesher said. "The bear was legally harvested."
Gentry's latest album with band mate Eddie Montgomery is Some People Change, which dropped in October.
(Editor's Note: Gentry was sentenced Feb. 23, 2007.)