Vern Evans
In a damning about-face on Tuesday, CJ Alexander pleaded guilty in Clinton County Court to 14 criminal charges for poaching one of the biggest whitetail bucks in Ohio history and fabricating an elaborate story to cover it up. A clerk of courts confirmed the guilty plea with Outdoor Life but was unable to share the details of Alexander’s plea before the courts closed Tuesday.
Alexander was indicted on 23 criminal charges in June for allegedly poaching the buck, which was also in the running for the third-largest all-time typical whitetail in the Boone and Crockett record book before it was confiscated by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in December 2023. Alexander had maintained his innocence after the ODNR launched an investigation into the buck, and he doubled down on his innocence after his criminal indictment was handed down by Clinton County prosecutors in June.
Alexander had shared his story behind the hunt for the “Alexander Buck” with Outdoor Life in December, a little over two weeks before the antlers were confiscated by the ODNR. He told OL that he killed the 200-plus-inch Ohio behemoth using a borrowed crossbow while hunting his sister’s 9-acre property in Clinton County. It’s the same story Alexander has maintained in public for nearly a year, and one that seems to have been unraveled by investigators, who gathered a pile of evidence in the form of cell phone records and metadata, according to court documents obtained by Outdoor Life.
These documents, and particularly the cell phone records contained within, give shape to an elaborate scheme in which Alexander killed the 200-plus-inch buck known as the “Alexander Buck” on Nov. 9, 2023 on private land where he knowingly did not have permission to hunt. They show how after Alexander killed the trophy buck with a crossbow, he recovered the illegally harvested buck with accomplices and then staged its taking on his sister’s property so he could profit off the deer, mislead investigators, and become the hero of his own hunting story. These cell phone records were obtained through a search warrant and provided to Alexander and his defense attorney as part of their request for discovery, court records show.
“I’m gonna get offered stupid money for this deer head babe … Like buying house type money … This deer is gonna make us money,” Alexander texted his fiancé Carissa Weisenberger on Oct. 17, a little over three weeks before he killed the infamous “Alexander Buck.” Other texts sent in the following weeks, along with the accompanying GPS metadata, proved that Alexander was hunting the buck hard and expecting to kill it on the 49-acre parcel where he knowingly did not have permission to hunt.
“I’m in all camo and im pretty sneaky,” Alexander said in another text message to Weisenberger, on Oct. 26, after she texted saying she was worried about him getting caught.
Additional text messages, photos, videos, GPS data, and Snapchats obtained from Alexander’s phone show how he and accomplices tried to cover up the poaching by staging the taking of the buck on his sister’s property the day after it was killed, and by tampering with evidence and falsifying records. These records show that Alexander continued to lie, both to investigators and others, as news of the buck spread.
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“It’s everywhere babe lol … No going back now,” Weisenberger said in a text she sent him on Nov. 13.
Cell phone records obtained by investigators also show how Alexander profited off the poached buck by selling its antlers to an antler buyer; by selling exclusive rights to his story to a hunting magazine and shopping the story around to others; and by signing a promotional deal with a hunting company. He allegedly did all this while feeding those people the same false story about how and where the buck was killed.
Alexander could not immediately be reached for comment. He is scheduled to be sentenced in Clinton County court on Dec. 11, according to the clerk of courts.
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