ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 16, 1996 TAG: 9608160078
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FINCASTLE
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
PLIGHT OF THE HUNTER: At his sentencing in Botetourt County, Charlie Nichols said he's had to bear shame brought by faked trophies.
Charlie Nichols has now been sentenced in six localities for winning bowhunting contests with bogus trophies, including antlers he bought through magazine ads.
All told, including the sentence Botetourt County Circuit Judge George Honts imposed Thursday for two forgery charges Nichols pleaded guilty to, he must pay $8,700 in fines for his indiscretions.
He owes the state 300 hours of community service.
He'll be on supervised probation for five years.
He has 13 years of suspended prison time.
He was indicted last month on similar charges in Henrico County, but whatever happens to him in that case, the toughest punishment has already been exacted.
The Roanoke County man has effectively lost what he testified he "loved more than anything'': hunting.
Judges in Botetourt, Roanoke, Augusta, Rockingham, Floyd and James City counties have revoked Nichols' hunting privileges in Virginia for a total of 20 years. What's more, as a convicted felon, he is forbidden by law from ever owning a firearm again.
Nichols, 36, can own a bow, his frequent hunting weapon of choice, and he can bowhunt in other states, but a friend and supervisor at Akzo Nobel Coatings Inc. doubts Nichols will do that.
"I think this has all just changed what hunting is for him," Sam Winkler said.
Then there's the unquantifiable punishment: the humiliation. Nichols' work supervisors testified he has been ridiculed at work frequently since his obsessive pursuit of recognition began playing out in the press.
However, his bosses testified in his behalf and promised he'll have his job as assistant foreman as long as he wants it.
Nichols pleaded guilty in all six localities to buying antlers from a mail order company in Montana and rigging them on deer pelts he bought or took from deer he killed. On one occasion, Nichols admitted to game wardens, he drove to Michigan with $1,500 he saved up and bought a live deer from a legal deer farm. He shot the deer and checked it in Botetourt County as a legal kill. The forgery charges in Botetourt stemmed from his falsification of game check tickets for the bogus deer.
Nichols spent thousands of dollars on the fake trophies, he told game wardens, to win prizes worth mere hundreds.
"I like to be number one, that's all there is to it," Nichols said Thursday. He won his first prizes with legal kills, he said, but working 60 hours a week, it got too hard to find good deer. So he started faking kills and entering them in contests to feed his hunger for recognition.
"I'd like to apologize to everyone I publicly embarrassed," he said, from his wife and 21-month-old daughter to hunters everywhere.
"I don't go in public," he said. "I'm too ashamed." So is his wife, he said.
Several friends, including some hunters, have stuck by Nichols and testified in his behalf.
Andy Ratliff called Nichols "closer than a brother to me," even though Nichols used his name to order some of the antlers he bought. He hunted with Nichols hundreds of times but had no idea Nichols was faking some of his kills. Nichols told his friend what he'd been doing after game wardens filed charges against him.
Nichols made a detailed videotaped confession to game wardens, which was played in part at his trial in June.
"Mr. Nichols is a good man that made a terrible decision at some point," said Botetourt Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom. "I don't know that we're ever going to punish him more than he's punishing himself."
But Branscom asked that Nichols spend 60 days in jail anyway to "protect the values of the community" that finds what he did "reprehensible."
Honts passed on that recommendation.
"But for this idiotic thing you did," he said, "you appear to be a model citizen, Mr. Nichols."
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Nichols. color.by CNB