A former TV hunting show host from East Peoria has admitted poaching and smuggling a deer. Federal prosecutors said forty-one-year-old Christopher Brackett used to host "Fear No Evil" on the Outdoor Channel. Brackett admitted killing two bucks in Indiana in 2013 within minutes of each other when state rules said he could only take one in a season.
Brackett also admitted taking the second buck to East Peoria and the next year featuring it as "the Unicorn Buck" on his show because of its antler formation. Brackett will pay fines and restitution totaling 30,000 dollars to the state of Indiana. He'll be sentenced in November to two and a half years of probation and a worldwide ban on hunting during that period.
The agreed on sentence is at the low end of the range with a potential maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Brackett also confessed in court to ordering his cameraman to destroy footage of the first buck shooting. The first buck was an eight-point buck. The Unicorn Buck was an eleven-point animal.
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