A pair of Ohio game wardens who cracked one of the biggest poaching cases in state history — the CJ Alexander buck — have been honored for their work by the Pope and Young Club. Isaiah Gifford and Matt Roberts, both wildlife officers with the state’s Department of Natural Resources, received P&Y’s Wildlife Law Enforcement Officer Award at the club’s Arizona convention this month. P&Y gives out the award once every two years to an officer (or in this case, officers) for their outstanding work related to wildlife violations.
“We started [an award] back in 1995 to recognize wildlife biologists for their work, and I started thinking we need to something [similar] for conservation officers,” P&Y conservation chair and retired game warden Doug Clayton tells Outdoor Life. “You look at all the work these officers do and it’s [mostly] behind the scenes. So the general public doesn’t see this, and even the hunting community, they know poaching goes on but they don’t really know the extent of it.”
Gifford and Roberts are the first-ever co-recipients of the award as well as the first Ohioans, according to the agency. Giffords, 26, has worked for the DNR since 2023, while Roberts has more than 20 years with the agency. The two officers were selected for the award because of their roles investigating the now-notorious poaching case involving CJ Alexander.
After using a crossbow to poach what would have been Ohio’s new No. 1 all-time typical whitetail, Alexander made up an elaborate story to cover up the fact that he committed more than a dozen related crimes, including repeated trespassing. He then shared that fabricated story to promote himself and the deer with multiple media outlets — which included interviews with Outdoor Life and selling his story to at least one other hunting outlet.
“This was an excellent case,” Clayton says. “A lot of wildlife cases are cut and dry, but then you have these big ones that just spiderweb out — you find one thing that leads to something else, and sometimes you’re dealing with multiple jurisdictions or the Feds. A lot of people just don’t realize how involved some of these cases are, and what it takes to bring them to fruition.”
Gifford and Roberts conducted a careful investigation for a full year. Although Alexander repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and doubled down on his innocence, the two wardens eventually cracked the case wide open by securing his cell phone records. The texts, GPS location data, and other evidence therein revealed Alexander’s long history with the buck he nicknamed “Megatron”, along with his true intentions for killing the deer.
In Alexander’s own words, texted to his fiancé just a few weeks before he poached the 200-plus-inch buck: “I’m gonna get offered stupid money for this deer head babe …. Like buying house type money … This deer is gonna make us money.”
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In October 2024, Alexander pleaded guilty to 14 charges related to the poaching. He was sentenced in December to 90 days in jail, along with $43,000 in fines. Of that, $39,696.73 went directly to the Ohio Wildlife Fund to reimburse the state for the loss of such an incredible buck. (Like some states, Ohio calculates a special restitution fee based on total inches of antler of an illegally-taken deer.) Alexander’s accomplices, his sister Kristina and his friends Corey and Zachary Haunert, also pleaded guilty and were charged separately.
The last recipient of P&Y’s Wildlife Law Enforcement Officer Award was Lt. Stacey Lewton of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission in 2023. Lewton and the NGPC were instrumental in the Hidden Hills Outfitters bust, which spanned multiple states and involved more than 30 other individuals, including the Bowmars.
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