Missoula County Attorney Discusses Serious Poaching Issue

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Missoula County Attorney’s Office filed 19 new felony complaints this week, which is the same as last week and right around the weekly average. County Attorney Matt Jennings was pleased to report that only four of those were violent crimes. 

“We did have three endangerment crimes, five property crimes, which is a little bit high,” Jennings said. “We've been seeing a lot more property crimes in the last few weeks. We had five drug crimes as well, and that's a higher number than we've usually been running on average. Then there were two administrative crimes, which were both fugitives from justice. Within the violent crimes, we had two non-family and one family violence. Then there was one case of animal abuse.” 

According to Jennings, that ended up being a fish and game violation. He said it was a systematic common scheme of poaching over a matter of years, with many animals. 

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“When we see deliberate and systematic poaching of animals that deprive the rest of Montanans of our hunting opportunities and damage our wildlife resources, we take that extremely seriously,” Jennings said. “We only get a few of those a year because a vast majority of hunters, fishermen, and women in the state of Montana recreate responsibly and share in that responsibility of balancing our game, but we get some bad actors too, and we will vigorously prosecute them.” 

Jennings was the lead prosecutor in the Miles Miller trial that ended with a guilty verdict last Friday. 

Read More: Missoula Man Found Guilty of Killing His Mother

“It was a really tragic case that arose in May of 2023, and it took that long to get it to trial, but it was a good outcome for the family,” Jennings said. “Obviously, it was a somber and tragic situation nonetheless. Sometimes we struggle with declaring victory in something like that when somebody still died and a family is really torn apart by it. It is sad all around, but we're glad that we were able to get some justice for the victim in that case.” 

Miller is scheduled for sentencing on January 22nd. Jennings said previously that Miller could face up to life in prison. 

The Missoula County Attorney’s Office provides a weekly crime report every Friday morning at 9:00 on Talk Back.