Wisconsin Deer Poacher Sentenced to Jail, $27,417 Fines

Dominick R. Stanek, 61, of Viola, told investigators he shot the deer to prevent crop damage on his 207-acre farm near West Lima in southwestern Wisconsin. Stanek had an agricultural damage permit to kill deer when first confronted in August 2019, but hotline complaints from neighbors alerted the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources that he was violating the permit’s terms.

Those complaints led to an investigation and four citations totaling $1,292.15 when conservation wardens saw Stanek shoot a deer from his vehicle on Aug. 13, 2019, while using a spotlight. The wardens advised Stanek to work with hunters to legally reduce the herd and hoped he learned his lesson. Instead, Stanek soon abandoned the ag-damage program and closed his property to other hunters, claiming they only wanted to shoot big bucks.

A few months later, neighbors again heard suspicious shots echoing from Stanek’s property and resumed calling the DNR’s hotline. The DNR launched a criminal investigation and assigned more wardens to the case for months of surveillance work.

The investigation lasted two years, resulting in 27 citations that covered Jan. 1, 2020, through Dec. 31, 2021. The criminal report by Richland County District Attorney Jennifer Harper said Stanek’s “primary method of take was to shoot deer with the hopes they would run off and later die in the woods and not in the fields.”

The report said Stanek never tried to retrieve or follow up on the deer he shot, and DNR wardens documented rotting deer carcasses on Stanek’s property. DNR warden Kirk Konichek said residents also reported injured deer stumbling in the fields and along nearby roads.

Wisconsin conservation wardens found this 8-point buck rotting in a southwestern Wisconsin field after it was killed illegally. Image via Wisconsin DNR.

Konichek said he has never seen a “guilty party show such a complete lack of remorse for their blatant disregard of a natural resource.”

In a telephone interview, Konichek added: “(Stanek) took the skull and antlers from some of the bigger bucks, but he mostly left everything lying where it fell to rot.”

Konichek, who has been a warden since 2010, said the case required the longest and most complex investigation of his career. He thinks it wouldn’t have succeeded without the hotline tips, saying, “I’ve never seen the public play a more critical role in a successful investigation.”

Landowners also granted wardens access to their properties to conduct surveillance on lands Stanek owns with his brother Dennis, including a nearby 139-acre parcel and 104 acres in Vernon County.

Konichek said a search warrant executed Oct. 19, 2021, on the Staneks’ main property near West Lima, turned up numerous brass casings from spent rounds. After retrieving the brass from evidence storage in early December 2021, Konichek counted 35 casings with numbers in black indelible ink written on their sides. Two casings were .22 long-rifle, and 33 were .223 Remington. Stanek told Konichek the numbers indicated the distance, in yards, of shots he made with that round.

“That took it a step above anything I’d ever seen before, and made it clear that he had made a game out of it,” Konichek said.

Of the 27 citations, all but three were misdemeanors, mostly for hunting without a license and hunting during a closed season, but also one for illegal shining. The other three citations were felonies involving mistreatment of animals. Prosecutors eventually dropped the felony citations and 11 misdemeanors in the final plea agreement.

The felony citations involved poison placed in the Staneks’ cornfields. The criminal report said wardens found trays or bowls filled with a mixture of grape soda and Golden Malrin pellets, a bait used to control flies. The mixture is quickly fatal when drunk. Wardens found a dead opossum and dead raccoons just steps away from the poison, with vomit coming from the mouths.

“(The Staneks) tried to eliminate anything that might eat their crops,” Konichek said. “The poison really worried us. We didn’t want predatory birds eating animals that were poisoned.”

Konichek said this was also the first time one of his cases led to jail time, but Stanek left prosecutors little choice. He persistently patrolled his land for deer and kept shooting every deer he could, even after the first case cost him $1,300 and embittered his neighbors.

But even that first case was unusual. When Konichek and warden Hans Walleser first confronted Stanek in August 2019 after seeing him shoot a deer at night, he became “extremely agitated,” the criminal complaint said. Stanek initially ignored the wardens’ commands to stop moving toward his vehicle, where he had firearms and ammunition, causing the wardens to threaten him with a Taser gun.

Though Stanek wouldn’t talk to the wardens that night, he consented to an interview several days later. He then cooperated, admitted his violations, and explained that he took matters into his own hands because his “mighty buck hunter” neighbors only wanted more deer. The criminal complaint also said Stanek’s girlfriend wrote a letter to the local newspaper, portraying the Stanek brothers as “poor farmers trying to protect their livelihood.”

When the second wave of shootings started in 2020, wardens no longer considered it a civil matter. Stanek was likely “up to his old tricks,” and so the DNR launched a criminal investigation with a special investigator and more wardens. They also placed surveillance cameras and often posted surveillance teams.

When the DNR documented shots on video shortly after dark in August 2020, and more in August and September 2021, wardens executed search warrants, and Stanek admitted he often shot deer at night. He also admitted his brother shot about 10 deer, but the DNR didn’t cite Dennis Stanek because they lacked corroborating evidence. Dennis Stanek also told wardens he wanted his brother to shoot every deer on the property by the end of 2021.

“(Dominick Stanek) thinks he should be able to do whatever he wants because it’s his land,” Konichek said. “He made his rounds almost like clockwork, and shot wherever he saw a deer, whether it had antlers or not. Surveillance wasn’t easy because we had to keep our people safe, and it was hard to keep eyes on him because of the terrain, woods, and cornfields. We worked that case every night possible, but the stars must align to get what we need for a strong case.”

The case concluded Jan. 21 this year after Stanek pleaded guilty to 14 of the 27 counts. He must report by March 19 to serve his 4-month jail term. The investigation involved Wisconsin DNR attorneys, special investigators, the state Justice Department, and the sheriff’s departments in Richland and Vernon counties.

Feature image via Wisconsin DNR, the velvet-antlered buck is one of the 150-plus deer killed illegally in 2020-2021 by Stanek.