Vern Evans
The saga of CJ Alexander, the now-infamous Wilmington man who poached one of the biggest bucks in Ohio history and spun a vast web of lies to cover it up, has officially come to a close. Alexander was sentenced yesterday in Clinton County court, and he will serve 90 days in jail for his leading role in the high-profile poaching case, according to a statement from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. The attorney general also ordered Alexander to pay a combined $43,000 in fines, and his hunting privileges have been revoked for at least 10 years.
“Hunting in Ohio is a time-honored tradition, and there is a proper way to be safe and successful,” Yost said Wednesday. “When bad actors like these guys try to cheat the system, it ruins the reputation of Ohio’s respected sportsmen and women — I can’t stand for that.”
The other “bad actors” implicated in the case were brothers Corey and Zachary Haunert, and Alexander’s sister, Kristina M. Alexander, all of whom aided Alexander in poaching the buck and helped him stage an elaborate cover up. The three individuals pleaded guilty to charges in October and were sentenced separately. But it’s Alexander who faces the biggest penalties for his role as ringleader. Specifically, his sentence will require him to:
- Serve 180 days in jail, with 90 days suspended and the other 90 days served at the Star Community Justice Center before he can be eligible for work release (his sentence also includes an up to 36-month suspended prison term that becomes active if community control is revoked)
- Serve five years of community control
- Pay $39,696.73 to the Ohio Wildlife Fund and $2,000 in restitution to KSE Sportsman Media, DBA Outdoor Sportsman Group-IM
- Pay $1,000 in restitution to the poaching hotline, a $1,000 wildlife fine and court costs
- Enter a four- to six-month community-based program through the Star Community Justice Center
- Write letters of apology to affected parties
- Forfeit all hunting-related property seized by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Wildlife as evidence
- Lose his hunting license for a minimum of 10 years; if full restitution is not paid by then, the license remains revoked until full payment is made
Alexander’s sentencing comes a little less than two months after he pleaded guilty to 14 charges related to the poaching. The charges included one felony count each of theft by deception and tampering with evidence, and 12 misdemeanors related to hunting violations, falsification, jacklighting, and the sale of wildlife parts.
His guilty plea in October was a major about-face, as Alexander had strongly maintained his innocence for months. He repeatedly doubled down on these claims, both in interviews with OL and other media outlets, and in conversations with investigators.
The lies began almost exactly one year ago on Dec. 8, 2023, when Alexander shared his story with Outdoor Life, claiming he killed the 200-plus-inch Ohio behemoth with a borrowed crossbow while hunting his sister’s 9-acre property in Clinton County. He maintained this version of events after the Ohio Department of Natural Resources launched an investigation on Dec. 26, seizing the buck along with other evidence in Alexander’s possession, and he continued to do so after being indicted on 23 criminal charges in June.
Public court records obtained by Outdoor Life in October show how investigators used cell phone records to unravel Alexander’s offenses. The trove of damning text messages and GPS location data proved how Alexander sought out and killed the 18-point buck on private land where he knowingly did not have permission to hunt. They also show how, after Alexander killed the buck, he recovered the illegally harvested deer with accomplices and staged photos on his sister’s property so he could profit off the deer, mislead investigators, and become the hero of his own hunting story.
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“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 fiance Carissa Weisenberger on Oct. 17, a little over three weeks before he killed the infamous “Alexander Buck.”
It seems only fitting, then, that Alexander will pay out the nose for a buck that he poached for profit — a buck that was at one point in the running for the third-largest all-time typical whitetail in the Boone and Crockett book, and one that stood a chance of becoming the state’s new No. 1 whitetail deer.
Of the $43,000 in fines ordered by the attorney general, $39,696.73 will go directly to the Ohio Wildlife Fund to reimburse the state for the loss of such an incredible buck. Ohio takes these crimes seriously, and the state calculates a special restitution fee based on the total inches of antler if the illegally taken deer scores more than 125 inches gross. One widely reported gross score for the Alexander buck was 235 ⅞ inches, while a Buckmasters score sheet on Alexander’s Instagram page lists the gross score as 217 4/8.
If Alexander is unable to cover those costs, his hunting license will remain revoked indefinitely, even after the 10-year suspension is complete.
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