Tiger owners plead guilty in U.S. court
By Sylvie Belmond belmond@theacorn.com

The couple whose escaped tiger was shot near Miller Park in Moorpark two years ago pleaded guilty Jan. 8 to federal charges relating to animal welfare and obstruction of justice.

Gert Hedengran, 58, admitted to felony counts of making false statements to agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.

Hedengran also pleaded guilty for two misdemeanor counts of failing to maintain proper records for the exotic animals.

Authorities recommended that he go to federal prison for 14 months and receive supervised release afterward. Supervised release is much tougher than probation, said Joseph Johns, assistant U.S. district attorney, who prosecuted the case.

Roena Hedengran, 54, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count for failing to maintain records of exotic felines.

She and the U.S. attorney's office have asked the judge to sentence her to three years of probation, four months of home detention and a $2,000 fine, Johns said. Both will be sentenced in April.

But the judge is not bound by the plea agreements, and he could impose tougher sentences.

"I can't predict what the judge is going to do," said Johns, who is satisfied with the preliminary results because crimes involving exotic animals don't usually yield any prison time.

The Hedengrans owned several exotic felines for about seven years through March of 2005.

They allowed people who donated money to them to visit and play with the animals. But the cats weren't rescued animals- they were mostly bought on the open market, said Johns.

The animals were transferred to Moorpark in January 2005 because the Hedengrans were evicted from their prior location in Temecula.

A Siberian lynx and the adult male Siberian tiger escaped from the new facility in the Tierra Rejada Valley during the move. The lynx was spotted by neighbors, and authorities managed to tranquilize and capture the animal, which was returned to the Hedengrans.

But the tiger roamed the eastern Ventura County rural region for more than three weeks before it was shot and killed by a federal animal tracker with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. The Hedengrans denied that the large tiger was theirs at the time.

"It's a very serious incident," Johns said.

There are many fatalities and severe injuries involving big cats. Those cases almost always involve negligent conduct, but nobody gets prosecuted, he said.