A New York waterfowl guide and outdoor TV personality has been indicted a second time on charges connected with illegally baiting and shooting waterfowl.
On December 19, 2019 illegal hunting acts against the Migratory Bird Treaty Act were filed against William Saiff III for three counts of the sale of wildlife in violation of federal law. It is alleged that the illegal hunting occurred in October and November 2018, according to the indictment.
Mr. Saiff, then a local hunting and fishing guide, was sentenced to federal probation in 2017 for baiting and shooting protected waterfowl and has now been indicted on allegations that he did it again in 2018.
In fact Saiff was cited for an incident in 2015 in which he admitted that on October 27, 2015, he had guided a hunting party over a baited pond near the town of Cape Vincent, NY.
William Saiff III has, in the past, hosted a hunting and shooting outdoor program called “Cabin Country,” which then aired on public television stations around the country. He was charged in U.S. District Court, Syracuse.
Following a guilty plea, he was sentenced in July of 2017 to 17 months of federal probation. As part of those terms, Mr. Saiff was ordered not to engage in any hunting or guiding activities before January 1, 2019.
It was in December 2018, right before Mr. Saiff’s probation was about to end, that documents were filed in court alleging he had violated his probation by baiting and taking migratory birds again.
According to New York Upstate, the 2017 plea resulted in “two misdemeanor counts of guiding waterfowl hunters over baited ponds for profit,” in which “he had faced a maximum prison sentence of up to one year and fines of up to $100,000 per count.”
In addition to those charges, he was nailed with a $5,000 fine and required to make a $10,000 donation to a non-profit wildlife organization. All of his state hunting and guiding privileges (not including fishing) were taken away until January 1, 2019.
He was ultimately instructed to pay for the publishing of several half page ads apologizing for his actions in two NY publications: The Water Town Times and New York Outdoors News.
If convicted on the new charges, Saiff faces five years in prison for each count, a fine of up to $250,000, and a supervised release that could reach as much as three years, including the wearing of an electronic monitoring device.
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