Three men pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges of illegally killing dozens of bobcats in New Hampshire and shipping their pelts to Canada. It's the latest chapter in one of the biggest poaching cases in recent New Hampshire history.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says Randy Inman and Sherwood Dubrey Jr. poached at least 41 bobcats, a protected species in New Hampshire. They lured the animals to be shot using bait piles on both their property and state land.
Inman and Dubrey Jr. handed off the bobcat pelts to Dubrey’s father, Sherwood Dubrey Sr., in New York. Dubrey Sr. used false tags showing the animals were killed in New York, where bobcat hunting is legal, and shipped them to Canada for sale at a fur auction.
Federal officials say these were all violations of the Lacey Act, a 126-year-old federal law that prohibits illegally harvested wildlife from crossing state or international lines.
“The people of New Hampshire have enacted hunting laws that conserve our resources and define our sense of fair play,” Erin Creegan, U.S. attorney for the District of New Hampshire, said in a press release. “Baiting and poaching dozens of bobcats for profit disregards that democratic consensus and the duty of sportsmanship shown by New Hampshire’s hunters. Crossing state or international lines will not protect poachers from accountability for their actions.”
Inman and Dubrey Jr. were also convicted in 2024 on a range of related crimes, following a major investigation led by New Hampshire Fish and Game known as "Operation Night Cat."
Catch up on this complex case. Listen to NHPR's Operation Night Cat podcast.
That investigation found five men, including Inman and Dubrey Jr., had killed dozens of animals out of season, at night, or through illegal baiting — all violations of the state's hunting laws. Inman alone was found to have illegally killed at least 20 animals, including foxes, coyotes, and bobcats.
Inman and Dubrey Jr. are both former corrections officers at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men. Last year, NHPR reported that the "Operation Night Cat" investigation also uncovered evidence of potential crimes by state prison staff.
This includes text messages showing Inman, a former prison supervisor, was allegedly exchanging pills for cash in the prison parking lot. Other text messages show Inman allegedly helped cover up an assault on an inmate by another now-former corrections officer charged in the poaching case. Investigators from multiple state and federal agencies reviewed this evidence, but declined to file criminal charges.
In April 2024, a state investigative report said that the only charges the federal government would pursue were those related to the hunting violations, according to documents obtained by NHPR.
Inman retired from the New Hampshire Department of Corrections in May 2023. Dubrey Jr. left the department in 2014.
Ron Arsenault, a conservation officer with New Hampshire Fish and Game and the lead investigator on “Operation Night Cat” since 2022, told NHPR he felt relieved that the federal case is moving forward, but he wasn’t breathing a sigh of relief just yet.
“It just doesn’t feel like it’s done,” he said. “But I do see a light at the end of the tunnel.”
A federal judge will sentence the three defendants in January 2027. Dubrey Jr. and Inman face a maximum prison term of five years. Dubrey Sr. faces a maximum prison term of one year.
