LOCKPORT—A Waterdown, Ont., man who has been prosecuted on both sides of the border for smuggling rare rattlesnakes drew a $5,000 fine and a three-year conditional discharge here Friday from Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza.
Emanuele Tesoro, 42, had pleaded guilty here to illegal commercialization of wildlife. In Canada, he drew $6,000 in fines and 90 days in jail for smuggling, and in U. S. District Court in Buffalo, he is to be ordered to forfeit his family van, which he used to drive the snakes across the border.
Tesoro was arrested Oct. 15 at Fashion Outlets mall in the Town of Niagara by an undercover Department of Environmental Conservation officer who had set up what Tesoro thought was a trade: 33 Eastern Massasauga rattlers from Tesoro for $1,100 and five timber rattlesnakes from the DEC man.
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