FORT WORTH, Texas, July 21 (UPI) -- An arrest warrant for illegal hunting was issued for a Dallas attorney who bragged of bagging a monster alligator on his first reptile hunt, officials said.
Warrants were issued for Levi McCathern II and three guides for illegally hunting the animal on private property, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials said.
The four had been expected to turn themselves in Wednesday at the Leon County Sheriff's Department in Centerville, about 145 miles southeast of Fort Worth, the department said in a release.
However, McCathern was out of state on a scheduled family vacation and the Leon County attorney was informed of that, his lawyer said.
McCathern will fight the charge, attorney George Milner III said, because he understood the guides had permission to be on the land to hunt.
One of the guides, Steve Barclay, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the landowner had given his OK.
"We did in fact have permission to kill alligators on that land," Barclay said.
The guides were identified by Parks and Wildlife as Barclay, 47, Sam Lovell, 56, and Ryan Burton, 21.
Barclay and Lovell operate a hunting-guide service called the Gar Guys.
Taking wildlife without a landowner's consent is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $4,000, a one-year jail sentence or both.
