
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 26, 1991                   TAG: 9103260320
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ANIMAL HIDE SALE BRINGS $15,000 FINE

A South African man was fined $15,000 and given three years' unsupervised probation Monday for smuggling and selling exotic animal hides.

Raymond Theron, 34, pleaded guilty in Roanoke to a federal charge of selling the hide of an endangered species - a cheetah - through interstate commerce to Leonard "Pete" Nicely, a Covington taxidermist.

Theron and Nicely were charged in 1988 with smuggling the hides of a tiger, a black leopard and several cheetahs to be stuffed and sold at Nicely's taxidermy shop.

Theron pleaded innocent to the charges last year. But in a plea agreement reached in U.S. District Court in Roanoke on Monday, he changed his plea in exchange for having charges involving other animals dropped.

Theron has acted as an agent and hunting guide in African big-game hunts. Judge James Turk ordered that Theron refrain from guiding hunts as a condition of his probation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson said Theron will return to his home in Douglas, South Africa.

by CNB