Ex-cop Sam Carter, 37, was sentenced Friday to four years probation and will have to serve 30 days on a work crew, the Daily Camera reported. He'd faced a maximum punishment of six years behind bars.
Carter, who will also have to pay $10,200 in fines, was convicted in June for shooting the beloved elk Big Boy as it grazed beneath a crabapple tree on New Year's Day 2013.
Prosecutor Stan Garnett was seeking at least a year in prison for Carter in part due to his 'flippant' and 'arrogant' attitude toward his crime, 7News reported.
But Judge Patrick Butler said that type of sentence would be 'largely symbolic' and Carter would likely be released on parole in just a few months, according to the Daily Camera.
'I am not interested in symbolic gestures,' the judge said in court, the news website reported. 'I want the sentence to benefit the community that was harmed.
During the hearing, Carter apologized to the citizens of Boulder and asked for a chance to 'repair the damage that I've caused.'
'I am haunted by this incident every day,' he said, according to the Daily Camera.
In asking for prison time, Garnett told the judge the cop had shown no remorse for his actions.
'Carter shows no acknowledgement of the impact of his acts on this community, on the Boulder Police Department or on law enforcement in general, and remains, in the words of the probation officer, "flippant" about his conduct,' Garnett wrote the sentencing judge, according to the station.
'Carter's behavior while on duty as a uniformed police officer was reprehensible and he should be sentenced to the Department of Corrections.'
Defense Attorney Marc Colin said the sentence was 'well thought out and well reasoned,' the Daily Camera reported.
Big Boy's death fueled massive public outcry after the officer claimed the elk was injured and he shot it to put the animal out of its misery — a claim neighbors in the Mapleton Hill neighborhood of Boulder denied.
During his trial, Carter's attorney argued that the elk had become dangerously domesticated and was scaring local dogs.
But prosecutors told the jury the killing was a case of poaching by an officer who sought to use his position to get an illegal trophy mount.
After shooting the elk, prosecutors said, Carter called a friend and former officer to pick up the carcass and butcher it. They also said Carter later forged a tag to pass off the dead animal as road kill.
The trial opened with debate over whether the elk's prior 'bad conduct' could be used as evidence, and whether jurors familiar with Big Boy could be impartial.
'Sam Carter is not guilty of anything but trying to protect citizens of Boulder from a nuisance elk,' Colin argued, as some in the packed courtroom shook their heads.
Prosecutors flashed a photo of the elk looking peaceful in a yard, and later showed another picture of a uniformed Carter hovering over the animal's carcass, grabbing its antlers and smiling.
Prosecutors say Carter called another officer, Brent Curnow, to come cart away the body in his pickup truck, and together they butchered the animal for its meat. Curnow pleaded guilty last year to tampering with evidence and other charges.
The officers swapped text messages about 'hunting' for 'wapiti,' the Shawnee word for elk.
The exchanges culminated with a stark message from Carter to Curnow well before Carter's shift began: 'He's gonna die.'
Nestled against the foothills and home to a Buddhist university, Boulder is known for its love of the outdoors. Its residents routinely rank among the country's most fit.
Witnesses said the sight of the hulking animal was a highlight of countless hikes and jogs.
'Maybe we're strange, but the philosophy up here is live and let live,' pet supply store owner Mary Lee Withers said. 'That elk never did anything.'
Carter's attorney, Marc Collin, told the Daily Camera he disagrees with the prosecutor's position.
'It's fair to say we are very disappointed in the DA's position,' he told the news outlet. 'It is not consistent with the way other criminal cases are treated.'
(Daily Mail - Aug 29, 2014)
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