The judge in U.S. District Court in Portland sentenced Rioux to one year of probation and fined him $10,000. He was also ordered to pay $1,843 in restitution to the state of Maine.
ME MAN CHARGED WITH KILLING MASSACHUSETTS MAN, MAINE TEEN
Rioux wanted the hares to use for beagle training and field trials in Massachusetts, prosecutors said. An investigator trapped hares on an island and sold them to Rioux on four seperate occasions in 2021, prosecutors said. He was arrested in March 2022.
A Massachusetts man was fined $10,000 and sentenced to probation for running an illegal hare trapping operation in Maine.
Rioux declined to comment on Thursday.
Snowshoe hares are cold-weather dwelling hares that have large back feet and change color from brown to white in the winter. Maine’s legal snowshoe hare hunting season runs from late September to early spring.