Overview
- Santos Guerrero, 42, pleaded guilty Thursday to violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
- U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Bray accepted the plea and set sentencing for July 30, when Guerrero could receive up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
- Prosecutors said video showed the bird being shot and falling from a tree, which investigators matched to a tree at Guerrero’s Porter, Texas, home after the October 2024 incident.
- The eagle was found alive, taken to an animal hospital, and later euthanized after a necropsy documented a bullet-damaged wing plus liver fractures, internal bleeding, and a fractured leg.
- Texas Parks and Wildlife responded to a witness report, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service joined the probe under a law that protects eagles even though they are no longer listed as endangered.