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Old 05-14-2008, 09:43 AM
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gchaff
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
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Posts: 7
Default RE: Anybody ever hear of this outfitter






DTC,
This is a big scam. Here is an artical from my hometown paper about this outfitter.

Hunters still hope for justice





• Warrant issued for hunt promoter’s arrest 05/05/08
By Helen Barrett



People in North Carolina are watching Alva’s courts to see if they will administer justice. So far, the accused fraudulent promoter of deer hunts has escaped punishment of any kind in the local courts.
A.J. Jenkins, a.k.a. James Adam Jenkins a.k.a. Adam James Jenkins, was charged in Woods County District Court in November 2007 with four counts of hunting without permission of the landowner. He was released on a $10,000 bond and scheduled to reappear on court dockets on Jan. 8, 2008, again on Feb. 12, 2008 and March 11, 2008.
A money judgment against Jenkins for $8,731 on the original four charges was entered Dec. 17, 2007. As of May 1, Jenkins had not made payments on the judgment.
Jenkins was found in direct contempt of court on March 11, 2008 and ordered to appear April 10. He was a no-show at that court hearing also.
On April 21, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. Hunter Speaks Out
Gary Quigg, one of 12 hunters who traveled from Charlotte, N.C., after purchasing a deer hunt from Jenkins and his Big Cedar Hunts at a Ducks Unlimited banquet, called the Alva Review-Courier this week to check on progress on the case.
“The guys that are here in North Carolina went as a group of 12,” Quigg said. “Our feeling is that when you steal from a charity, it’s like stealing from a church. He (Jenkins) deserves to go to jail.”
Quigg said that with his group of hunters, it wasn’t as much a matter of absorbing the cost of the fraudulent hunt, but the way Jenkins went about it.
“It’s the fact he stole from a charity that makes us determined to bring him to justice,” Quigg said.
Quigg said Jenkins “gave” the trips to various wildlife foundations like Ducks Unlimited, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the Wild Turkey Foundation. The trips were auctioned off at the foundations’ banquets. Those who bought the trips could take up to 10 people with them at one-half price.
“There were 27 we knew of the weekend we were there doing a three day hunt (arranged by Jenkins),” Quigg said. “He said Jenkins had been doing one or two three day hunts per week with up to thirty hunters at a time for about three weeks.”
Quigg said his first day hunting in Woods County was a great day. “Another fellow and I saw 31 deer, but no shooter bucks,” he said. “We thought it was fantastic until we were waiting on the road to be picked up that night and the landowner arrived.”
“This guy (Jenkins) was so slick, he convinced the landowner it was just a matter of which side of the fence we were supposed to be on,” Quigg said.
The landowner, John Fuqua, was “super nice,” Quigg said. However, after Fuqua checked with the neighboring landowner, he discovered they didn’t have permission to be on either side of the fence.”
Quigg said the other 10 members of his group had an absolutely miserable day.
“They were put in places that no self-respecting deer would ever walk,” Quigg said. “The second day was even worse. Guys were being shuffled around from one place that was miserable to another place that was miserable.”
When Jenkins was confronted with the group’s dissatisfaction, he became very aggressive with one of the men in the group.
“He jumped out of the truck and came at one guy like he was going to assault him,” Quigg said. “Finally he made promises to give a free trip next year – anything to diffuse our anger at his not fulfilling his responsibilities.”
“He stood to take in $200,000 to $300,000 (in fraudulent hunts),” Quigg said. “He stiffed the local motels and eateries. I just think this is the kind of guy that needs to go to prison.”
Unsafe Practices
Quigg said the men quickly became concerned for their own safety.
“My second day, he directed me to a spot where I wound up within 50-70 yards of another hunter with a muzzle loader who had no idea I was there.”
That same afternoon, Quigg was sent to a field when another member of his party spotted him, whistled and asked what he was doing there.
“I basically got with my back up against a tree so I wouldn’t get shot,” Quigg said. “It was totally unethical – totally no concern for anyone’s safety. “I understand the week after we were there, he had seven people hunting with high powered rifles in an 80-acre field,” Quigg said. Only one of the members of Quigg’s group bagged deer – a doe and a small buck. Another man from another group killed a modest size buck that same weekend.
“Jenkins picked them up and let them ride on one of those cargo hitches all night and all the next day in 70° weather,” Quigg said. “He didn’t even field dress the seven-pointer until after 10 o’clock the next morning.”
Quigg said part of the agreement stated that if hunters didn’t want their deer meat, it would be given to “Hunters for the Hungry,” another charity. The hunters gave Jenkins the required $35 for process the deer, but doubt that it ever reached the charity.
“As long as he let them ride on the back of the car, I’m pretty sure he just ditched them, which is another thing that made us sick,” Quigg said. “
Quigg said that if by chance Jenkins did take the carcasses to the processing plant, he hoped the butchers were smart enough not to send the meat on for human consumption because of the length of time between killing and dressing.
“Here he is just riding it around on the back of his car, just too dang lazy to do the minimum amount of doing what’s right,” Quigg said. A Good Story Jenkins’ pitch to Quigg and others at the Ducks Unlimited banquet was that Big Cedar Hunts had 160,000 acres owned by oilmen in Enid.
Just before the North Carolina group came to Woods County, Jenkins told them they had drawn the northern hunt unit, and just by coincidence, he was going to be in that unit guiding hunts.
The hunters had done their homework. They’d called some of the references Jenkins provided on his advertisements. Jenkins promised them a 53 percent success rate on trophy white tail deer scoring greater than 125 inches.
“He took us out to a horse farm west of town and stood there in the road and told us the biologist told them we could take seven trophy bucks from that area,” Quigg said. “He hunted seven people in that field the first day who saw a total of two deer a quarter of a mile away.”
An internet forum (realtree.com) lists several responses such as “We hunted bigcedarhunts.com and got ripped off. If anyone is looking for information on A.J. Adam Jenkins then you should talk to us. At one point there were 24 upset hunters that demanded a meeting with AJ. He had a mass mutiny on his hands! He is the only guy in Platinum Entertainment and Big Cedar Hunts. He is the only Partner.”
The same website lists another response as saying “We also hunted with Big Cedar … and we had the same outcome your group had. We had 14 people that could have strung AJ up had we found him. Four of our hunters got ran off their hunting spot an hour after day break on the opening morning. When we told the landowner who put them on the land, the land owner laughed and said AJ’s at it again and told them to get off his property.”
Still another blogger said, “Hey I was a guide for this outfit and it is a scam. Don’t book with Big Cedar Hunts. It’s a rip off. He still hasn’t paid anyone of the guides, or refunds. I doubt he ever will.”
Hunters’ Concern
The hunters who’ve been scammed want to see Jenkins brought to justice.
“This is not trespassing, this is fraud!” Quigg said. Quigg said they were also concerned that Jenkins is raising his son to hunt illegally. When they were on their hunting trip on November 3, 2007, the son told them that a week before that he’d killed his first deer with a high powered rifle – a .243.
“I don’t know if there was a special kids hunt that week or not,” Quigg said, “but rifle hunting season wasn’t open.”
Quigg said he and his friends are concerned Jenkins will just go to another county or state and continuing his fraudulent practices.
“We’ll be more than happy to come back out there and testify against him,” Quigg said.
Woods County Assistant District Attorney Brian Mitchell confirmed that the investigation into Jenkins’ activities is ongoing.

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