Hutterites plead guilty in grizzly bear possession case

GREAT FALLS — Five members of a northern Montana Hutterite colony and the colony itself have pleaded guilty and were sentenced in a case involving the September 2012 deaths of two grizzly bears.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Keith Strong ordered Sam and Daryl Kleinsasser along with Jonathan, Ike and Tom Waldner and the Hutterite colony to pay a little more than $19,000 in restitution.

Also Thursday, Strong ordered the Pondera Hutterite Colony to pay a $20,000 fine for two counts of misdemeanor possession of an endangered species. Daryl Kleinsasser was fined $2,000 for the two counts while the others were fined $1,000 each.

The men were not charged with killing the bears. They said the bears died of exhaustion as they chased them out of a corn field, and they buried the carcasses.