Big-game guide faces 6 felonies

WASILLA — A Wasilla-based big-game guide has been indicted by an Anchorage grand jury for allegedly substituting legal horns for an illegal Dall sheep taken during a 2009 hunt.

Chad A. Reel, owner of Reel Alaska Trophy Hunts, is accused of felonies for falsifying a business record, tampering with physical evidence and four counts of perjury in the May 7 indictment, announced last week by the state Attorney General’s Office.

Reel’s client in the hunt, Danny J. Davis of Priest Lake, Idaho, was also indicted for two counts of perjury.

Reel also faces 15 related misdemeanor state Department of Fish and Game criminal charges involving the alleged illegal taking, possessing and transporting of Dall sheep. Davis also faces four misdemeanors for those Fish and Game charges.

“The indictments were based on the results of a multi-state Fish and Game investigation involving Alaska Wildlife Troopers Wildlife Investigations Unit and Texas Game Wardens,” the state Department of Law says in its announcement of the move.

When contacted about the indictment Thursday, Reel said he was aware of a state investigation, but said the allegations of criminal misconduct are unfounded.

The charges are “absolutely not true,” he said. “The whole thing is a big witch hunt. I don’t know too much about it. I’m sure my attorney would tell me to say ‘no comment.’”

Reel’s attorney, Anchorage-based Kevin Fitzgerald, said the allegations involve a variety of hunts conducted in 2009-2010 and that the state’s latest move could be a reaction to an unsuccessful attempt to have Reel’s guide license revoked.

“What has happened is the state is obviously irked that its attempt to take Reel’s license has been thwarted,” Fitzgerald said, adding he intends to file an official response to the indictment. “He didn’t knowingly violate any game law. … In order for there to be an offense, there has to be a knowing violation.”

He said the indictment itself doesn’t prove anything, that it’s easy to get a grand jury to indict anyone, “even a ham sandwich.” That Reel is facing felony charges has Fitzgerald “shocked,” he said.

“What this demonstrates is some level of vindictiveness, in my opinion,” he said.

That’s because a judge reversed state action against Reel’s license, Fitzgerald said.

In a 34-page response to a state bail memorandum in the case, Fitzgerald and Reel said the state’s argument “is so devoid of merit and so bereft of an honest discussion of the true ‘facts’ as to warrant the instant response,” the response says. “The state has requested a number of bail conditions, all of which are opposed by the defendant, with the exception of a condition prohibiting the violating Fish and Game laws during the pendency of the case.”

The response also argues that former assistant guide for Reel was unreliable and should not have been believed when he testified about the alleged misconduct involved in the Dall sheep hunt with Davis.

The guide “testified that he had engaged in all sorts of misconduct related to a sheep hunt with client Dan Davis, but alleged that some of his misconduct had been directed by and known by Reel,” the response says.

On cross-examination, the guide “did not fare well,” and the administrative law judge in charge of the hearing, Judge Rebecca Pauli, found the man was not credible, the response says.

According to state records, Reel was a licensed registered guide and outfitter who had his license revoked effective Aug. 8, 2011. His guide business Reel Alaska Trophy Hunts, which online boasts “registered Alaskan big game guides,” was issued a guide license in 2002, which expired at the end of 2003. It hasn’t been renewed. Two other state business licenses for Reel — one for Reel Alaska Wild Fish and another for Reel Alaska Wild Salmon — have also expired.

Reel has previous commercial fishing violations in 1993 and 2004, the document outlines, and a 2006 misdemeanor conviction for taking a wolf. That last incident resulted in a $6,000 fine and informal probation that ended May 5, 2011.

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2269 or greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.