FaunaClassifieds - Man charged with selling rattlesnakes

WILLIAMSPORT — Capturing eastern timber rattlesnakes can be dangerous and, if done without a permit, illegal.

Cody Lee Short, 40, of the Trout Run area, can attest to both.

He is in Geisinger Medical Center near Danville after receiving multiple snake bites on his lower legs and hands Friday night. He was reported in critical condition Tuesday.

Short was bitten just hours after he appeared in Lycoming County court where his scheduled guilty plea to charges related to the illegal capture and sale of rattlesnakes and the killing of 12 prized deer in another case was delayed. The cases were continued to determine the status of theft charges against him in Northumberland County related to rifle scopes.

It wasn’t known Tuesday how Short was bitten by the snakes because he has yet to be interviewed, said Capt. Alan Robinson of the state Fish and Boat Commission. Short self-reported the bites, Robinson said.

State police and the commission are conducting a joint investigation, and he would not say if additional charges are likely.

Six rattlesnakes found at the site had to be euthanized because their tails had been cut off, Robinson said.

Short was arrested after he agreed to sell an undercover officer 11 snakes for $900. The 22 rattlesnakes that he had at the time of his arrest, which he claimed he’d caught around his cabin in Cogan House Township last June, were relocated and released, Robinson said.

In February after waiving the charges into court Short told Pennlive: “I’m very ashamed for all that I did. Everything about this was wrong. I’m guilty of what I did.”

Short claimed he had been in the reptile business for quite a while, had been selling snakes for more than 10 year and at one time had a permit. A permit would allow the capture of one snake a year during the season, which this year is June 9 to July 31, the commission says. It is illegal to sell the snakes.

Short also is accused of killing 12 deer worth $138,000 at Whitetail Mountain Lodge, a fence enclosed preserve where deer are bred, raised and released for hunting purposes.

The charges of theft, receiving stolen property, criminal trespass and criminal mischief allege on at least two occasions in the fall and winter of 2017 Short shot the bucks, cut off their heads with a knife for the antlers and left the carcasses.

https://www.pennlive.com/crime/2019/...ommission.html