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Fraud charges were recently unsealed in a 21-page indictment against two former Illinois boat dealership employees in a case that marine industry experts say is rare, but that offers an opportunity for boat buyers to think about how to choose a reputable broker or dealer.
Jeffrey D. Gibbs and Kara M. Wilkey, both former employees of Clinton Marine II, which sold used and new boats, are facing decades in prison on a combined 18 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Central Illinois, the two obtained loans on fictitious boats, took out loans using forged signatures, sold boats without paying off the customer’s loan or remitting payment, and collected payments for taxes, titles and fees without actually paying for those expenses. Instead, the indictment alleges, Gibbs and Wilkey used the more than $2 million to buy automobiles, take vacations, go shopping and otherwise “support their lifesty
Dale Bowman Two numbers stood out when deer harvest by Illinois hunters in the 2020-21 seasons came out. For the second straight year, Illinois bowhunters set a record for deer harvest: 75,544 compared to 67,743 in the 2019-20 season. More significant, archery harvest nearly matched the harvest during the two firearm seasons (76,579). That rise in archery harvest led the spike in overall harvest in ’20-21 to 162,575 deer from the 153,174 in ’19-20. I went over some of the numbers and their meaning with Dan Skinner, forest wildlife program manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. First, overall numbers and the pandemic. “Based on our preliminary data, it looks like we saw a harvest increase of a little over 6% over the 2019-2020 statewide harvest totals,” Skinner emailed. “To put that into perspective, from 2010-2020, our average change in harvest [whether up or down] from one year to the next was about 4.65%. So the change was a little higher t
Numbers are up by over six percent compared to last year.and archery deer hunting set another record. We still have to go through those numbers and look more specifically how deer were harvested, where they fall in those metrics. Our staff will continue to look at that and start asking some questions about why we re seeing these numbers increase and kind of where those are coming from.
More than 76,000 deer were taken during firearm season, with archery close behind at over 75,000.
Illinois counties with the largest harvests include Jefferson, Jackson and Williamson in southern Illinois.
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