Gentry Gets Bear Sentence

Troy Gentry pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge November 27th of falsely registering a captive bear named “Cubby” as being killed in the wild in 2004.

Gentry – half of Montgomery Gentry – testified in U.S. District Court that he and a man who owned a wildlife refuge agreed to report the bear was killed in the wild six miles east of Sandstone, Minn.

Lee Marvin Greenly, Gentry’s local hunting guide, pleaded guilty at the same hearing to two felony charges of helping hunters shoot bears at illegal baiting stations he maintained inside a national wildlife refuge near Sandstone.

Gentry will avoid a trial and has agreed to pay a $15,000 fine, give up hunting, fishing and trapping in Minnesota for five years and forfeit the bear’s hide and the bow he used to shoot it.

Greenly faces a maximum prison sentence of five years for each count, forfeiture of all-terrain vehicles he and employees used to reach the bait stations and a fine of up to $400,000.

“Cubby” was killed from a tree stand, according to Gentry, was not tame and roamed on a 3-acre private enclosure – not in a cage as initially reported.

Gentry pleaded guilty to “a simple charge having to do with improper tagging [of a game animal], and that’s all it ever was,” the singer’s attorney, Ron Meshbesher, said outside the courthouse.