Sellon Family In Illinois

Alligator Poacher's Slate Wiped Clean by Obama Pardon

"I ain't got it yet," Wilson said when reached at his home in Summerton, S.C., this week. "That's all talk, and until something comes up for real ... I ain't saying a word."

Wilson's pardon was one of eight Obama approved last month. Of the 17 pardons granted by Obama since he took office, it is the first related to a conviction for a wildlife crime.

The case stemmed from a sting operation conducted by Fish and Wildlife Service agents that targeted the then 34-year-old Wilson, who was shooting alligators on the grounds of the Civil War-era plantation he managed in Hardeesville, S.C., just across the Savannah River from Georgia. Under the Endangered Species Act, hunting alligators was illegal in South Carolina through the late 1980s. Today, alligator hunting is allowed in the state but strictly controlled.

According to FWS files on the case, Wilson killed the alligators in the coastal area of South Carolina near the Fife plantation and then sold their hides to a retired farmer in Metter, Ga. But their business came apart when Wilson's contact in Georgia sold the hides to undercover FWS agents who were onto the scheme.

According to a report in the Savannah Morning News just days after the two men's arrest in June 1985, the government presented tape recordings and other evidence to a federal judge showing that Wilson had sold the agents 134 feet of alligator hides in May 1984 and another 150 feet of hides days before his arrest. He was paid $5 a foot for the hides, while the Georgia man got $1 a foot for arranging the deal.

Both Wilson and his Georgia contact were eventually found guilty of violating the Lacey Act, which prohibits the possession, transport and sale of species taken in violation of the Endangered Species Act. Wilson eventually received a three-and-a-half-month prison sentence along with five years of probation.

Two decades later, Wilson filed his pardon application with the Department of Justice pardon attorney on Oct. 1, 2007.

In an interview with McClatchy Newspapers on the day the pardon was announced, Wilson said he got into the poaching business to try to make a little extra cash to pay the medical bills of his sick children.

"I was making good money as the plantation manager, but I had to have more money because a couple of my kids stayed sick all the time over and over," he told the news service. "It got us to where we couldn't even buy a loaf of bread."

This week, both Wilson and a DOJ spokeswoman declined to comment on the substance of his pardon application. But based on the history of presidential pardons, it is fair to say his odds were never great.

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