A federal judge has refused to dismiss an indictment against a Tinley Park man charged with violating the Endangered Species Act by killing endangered tigers, then selling their pelts to trophy collectors.
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William Kapp has argued that the dead tigers were hybrids, or the offspring of two different tiger subspecies. Kapp’s lawyer had asked a judge to throw out his indictment because, he said, the act doesn’t cover such hybrids.
Prosecutors have argued the tigers were not hybrids, and are, in fact, endangered.
In her seven-page ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning said the indictment should stand.
“Whether or not the animals here were or were not hybrid crosses is an issue for the jury to determine at trial, not for this court to decide on a motion to dismiss” the indictment, Manning said.
Kapp is one of 16 defendants indicted in three states on charges of buying, selling or killing 19 tigers and other endangered animals from Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Florida. Fourteen of the defendants have pleaded guilty.
Kapp and another man, Richard Czimer, owner of Czimer’s Game and Seafood in Lockport, have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.
Czimer has been accused of illegally selling tiger meat and labeling it as lion meat, which is legal to sell. In an interview with the Tribune earlier this year, Kapp said tigers in captivity are as common as cattle.
His attorney, Scott T. Kamin, has not denied Kapp and others killed the tigers, but said the animals were not endangered. Kamin equates the killings to a “slaughterhouse,” not unlike the killing of cattle.
Kamin said he filed his motion “on the off chance” that Manning would accept the argument and dismiss the charges. He said he thought the judge “seemed to accept the hybrid argument; she just thought it was an issue for the jury.”
Manning also rejected Kamin’s argument that the indictment should be dismissed because it did not specify that the tigers and other endangered species killed were born in captivity. “This contention is contrary” to the endangered species act, Manning said.
If the case against Kapp does go to trial, Kamin likely will use some of the same arguments then. Several of the men who have pleaded guilty have told prosecutors they will testify against Kapp.
The federal case is believed to be the largest prosecution of alleged tiger killers in U.S. history.
Seven men from the Chicago area were indicted in the case, in which tigers, leopards and other animals were killed and skinned. The hides were sold to wealthy collectors, some of whom paid thousands of dollars to have the animals stuffed.