WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A West Lafayette man will not be allowed to hunt in Indiana for the rest of his life after an investigation caught him illegally hunting wild turkeys in Indiana and six other states.
Hanson Pusey, 25, is the first person in Indiana's history to receive a lifetime hunting suspension.
He was sentenced to the suspension Thursday in a Warren County court and was also ordered to home detention, probation and was fined.
The move comes after an investigation by officers with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
Conservation officers received a tip in the spring of 2020 that Pusey was still hunting and taking multiple turkeys illegally in Indiana and other states, despite his hunting privileges having been suspended since 2019.
Officers used "surveillance techniques," Indiana DNR said, to monitor Pusey. They found evidence of him poaching in Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Investigators say they also caught him taking four spring turkeys in Indiana in 2020 — two after the season closed — and helping family and friends poach turkeys.
When officers searched Pusey's home, they found he had spent shotgun hulls from turkeys he had harvested — identifying the states and dates he took them.
Officers found 83 spent casings in the collection dating back to 2012, including 14 dated within three months of his first hunting suspension in 2019. Four were listed by Pusey as being taken from Indiana.
Pusey was charged in Indiana and several other states. Indiana DNR said punishments for various charges in those states included:
- Pennsylvania: $4,125 in fines and costs and an eight-year hunting license suspension
- Connecticut: $324 in fines and costs and an indefinite suspension
- Massachusetts: $700 in fines and costs and license suspension during probation
- Georgia: $2,335 in fines and costs
- North Carolina: $278 in fines and costs
- Tennessee: $525 in fines and costs
Pusey was charged again in February for hunting without permission and theft of a trail camera card in Warren County, despite the 2020 investigation and his convictions in other states.
