Immigrant Poacher Sentenced Senchenko Faces 3 Months In Jail For Snaring Bears, Selling Their Parts
A Russian immigrant was sentenced Wednesday to three months in jail for snaring bears and selling their parts on the black market.
Nicholay Senchenko, who became a U.S. citizen in 1994, also lost his hunting privileges for three years. He was released pending appeal of the federal jury’s decision.
The Spokane trial is over, but Senchenko still faces several counts of violating Washington hunting laws. He is scheduled to stand trial later this month in Newport.
If convicted of those charges, he could face several years behind bars and thousands of dollars in fines, said Mike Carbone, Pend Oreille County deputy prosecutor.
Wednesday’s sentence, handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Fred Van Sickle, was standard for trafficking in wildlife parts. The punishment was what prosecutor Timothy Ohms asked for and stiffer than what defense attorney Leslie Weatherhead said Senchenko deserved for “a hunting violation.”
State and federal wildlife agents in 1993 and 1994 found four high-powered snares in remote areas of the Colville National Forest in northeastern Washington. They fear more may have been set and could injure or kill people wandering through the woods.
A professional hunter before immigrating from the Ukraine to Spokane in 1989, Senchenko was convicted of selling the paws, claws and gallbladders from at least four bears agents say he caught in the snares.
Senchenko, who denies poaching bears or selling their parts, shunned Weatherhead when the trial started in January. He said he would not use any lawyer appointed by a government he doesn’t trust.
Senchenko decided to use the attorney when it proved difficult to defend himself in an unfamiliar court system that uses a language he speaks brokenly.
Speaking in court before his sentencing Wednesday, Senchenko denounced the prosecutor and wildlife agents as liars.
“There is no Constitution in America. There are no laws here,” he said through an interpreter. “There are only laws to punish people.”
As for Van Sickle, Senchenko said: “God shall be your judge.”
, DataTimes