Remember the Old Guy That Illegally Smuggled, Cloned, and Bred a Giant Hybrid Sheep? He’s Heading to Prison.

At the ripe age of 80 years old, Arthur “Jack” Schubarth broke the internet (at least in the hunting world) earlier this year when he was busted for importing foreign sheep parts, cloning embryos and eventually creating a giant sheep specimen he later named the “Montana Mountain King”.

And while the making of the Montana Mountain King, or MMK, was most certainly illegal, Schubarth made matters worse by selling additional cloned and bred giant sheep hybrids to captive hunting operations. With a pocket full of Lacey Act violations, the Feds wasted no time laying the smack down on Schubarth before he pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court of Montana back in March.

For those needing a refresher in the case, court documents revealed that Shubarth and at least five other individuals conspired over nearly 10 years to illegally import parts from Marco Polo argali sheep from Kyrgyzstan, which they later used to create cloned embryos and implanted them into ewes on his ranch that then produced a pure male Marco Polo argali of his own - the MMK.

Now with a breeder on the ranch, he and his co-conspirators used the semen from their newly crowned King to spread the seed, artificially inseminating a group of illegal ewes.

Jurassic Park sh*t.

In total, Schubarth was on the hook for one count of violating the Lacey Act and one count of conspiring to violate the Lacey Act for his actions.

After having his day in court late last month, the old man has since been sentenced to six months in prison, and has also been ordered to pay a $20,000 fine to the Lacey Act Reward Fund, a $4,000 payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and a $200 special assessment. 

“Schubarth’s criminal conduct is not how Montanans treat our wildlife population,” U.S. attorney Jesse Laslovich said in a release.  “Indeed, his actions threatened Montana’s native wildlife species for no other reason than he and his co-conspirators wanted to make more money. Schubarth’s greed drove their conspiracy to bring to Montana parts of the largest sheep in the world from Kyrgyzstan. Such actions to create hybrid animals are as unnatural as they are illegal, and I applaud the extensive collaboration and diligence of all of our law enforcement partners to bring Schubarth to justice.”

The case remains open as investigators continue to work to implicate Shubarth’s co-conspirators.