The mayor of Richfield, Utah, pled guilty to two hunting-related charges on Nov. 6, three weeks after he knowingly broke the laws and reportedly called the authorities on himself — and just two days after he was re-elected mayor. According to the plea in abeyance agreement he reached with the state, Mayor Bryan Burrows will pay $690 in fines and has promised not to commit any further crimes over the next 12 months.
As reported by KSL News and other local outlets, Burrows was charged with unlawful taking of wildlife while trespassing and improper discharge of a dangerous weapon, both class B misdemeanors in Utah.
The charges stem from an incident that took place on Oct. 24 in Sevier County, of which Richfield is the county seat. Burrows said he was deer hunting when he shot his firearm within 600 feet of a building, and then trespassed on private property without permission to recover a deer.
“I was hunting deer and made a mistake and realized and went down and took care of it,” Burrows told KSL. “I did the right thing after I screwed up.”
He added that he’d opened a lock to go through a gate after he shot and killed the deer. It’s unclear if he shot the deer on the private property where he trespassed, as reported by ABC-4 News, or if he was simply recovering the deer there without the landowner’s permission.
“The Defendant, knowing it to be unlawful, did shoot a deer within 600 feet of a building and enter onto a locked cultivated field to retrieve a dead deer without the consent of the owner,” reads the plea in abeyance agreement submitted in Sevier County Justice Court on Nov. 6.
Either way, Burrows owned up to his mistakes on Oct. 24 and called law enforcement with the Utah Department of Natural Resources that same day. The DNR confirmed this fact with ABC-4. The agency said, however, that it had already received a prior call from a local dispatch center, which reported concerns about a hunter shooting near houses and trespassing.
An unofficial website examining Burrows points out that although he was charged with the two misdemeanors on Oct. 24, the charges weren’t documented in Sevier County Court until Nov. 6. This was two days after the Nov. 4 Richfield Mayoral election, which Burrows narrowly won.