(DELTA JUNCTION, Alaska)—On Tuesday, Jan. 14, the Department of Law, Office of Special Prosecution, filed criminal charges in the Delta Junction District Court against registered big game guide Richard A. Kinmon, Sr., owner of Alaska Trophy Hunters in Wasilla. Charges were also filed against assistant big game guide Colin S. Marquiss, 23, of Wasilla and a previous client, Joseph C. Hahn, 24, of Pittsburg, Penn.

The investigation began when the Anchorage Wildlife Investigations Unit received a complaint in July 2012 from one of Kinmon’s former clients indicating that another client on a guided hunt had killed a Dall sheep in September of 2009 without possessing a valid non-resident sheep tag.

Kinmon, 62, was a licensed Alaska Department of Fish & Game vendor from 2008 to 2013. Investigation revealed that Kinmon sold big game tags to four of his clients in hunting camp after they had harvested their animals. Kinmon also guided a client for caribou without being certified for that species in game management unit (GMU) 20A, baited brown/grizzly bear with a moose carcass that he moved from the kill site with an Argo, allowed his assistant guide, Marquiss, to harvest a moose while guiding clients, assisted a client in taking a sub-legal moose and falsified public records. These illegal activities resulted in Kinmon being charged with a total of 30 violations of state game and guiding laws that occurred between 2009 and 2011.

Marquiss is charged with three counts of unlawfully guiding and hunting a big game animal with clients in the field and Hahn is charged with four counts of taking a brown/grizzly bear without a valid non-resident tag, unlawful possession of game and falsifying public records.

Several of the charges carry a maximum penalty of one year in jail and up to a $10,000 fine. Some of the guiding charges carry maximum penalties up to one year in jail and a $30,000 fine. As part of the investigation, Troopers seized two Argos that were used in the commission of these alleged crimes.

On Aug. 29, 2013, Kinmon was also arraigned in Delta Junction on six other guiding counts stemming from this investigation. In that case, one of Kinmon’s other clients allegedly harvested a brown/grizzly bear during September of 2008 without possessing a valid non-resident tag.

Arraignment dates are pending in Delta Junction District Court.