“The attorney representing a man charged by the Pennsylvania Game Commission with using a drone to recover game is asking the state Legislature to hold a committee hearing on the matter.
A judge ultimately overturned the guilty verdict against Josh Wingenroth. His attorney, Michael Siddons, says the Game Commission intentionally withheld evidence prior to and during the judicial process.
Siddons said he submitted a Right-to-Know request in January 2024 to the Game Commission seeking a record of a call made to the agency’s central dispatch number.
In the call on Nov. 29, 2022, a Game Commission employee said it was permissible to use a drone to recover game as long as the activity didn’t occur on game lands, Siddons said.
The commission responded to the request, saying it had no record of a call received from the number Siddons provided.
Later, Siddons issued one subpoena for the agency’s records custodian to appear for a hearing at the Lancaster County Courthouse and another requesting an unredacted transcript of the November 2022 call in question.
Siddons said the Game Commission didn’t amend its previous response to the first Right-to-Know request, nor did it produce a copy of the call or acknowledge it existed.
The first time he and his client learned the Game Commission had a record of the call was when the records custodian displayed it while on the witness stand during the court hearing, the attorney said.
Siddons filed a second Right-to-Know request Jan. 17 this year for a transcript of the call, but the Game Commission denied it, citing an exemption because the call was on an emergency dispatch line.
It wasn’t until Feb. 12, after Siddons filed an appeal with the state Office of Open Records, that the Game Commission agreed to release the call record and requested the open records office appeal be dismissed, which it was.
“Given the facts of how the PGC conducted itself in the prosecution of the Wingenroth case, it appears that this was a deliberate and willful decision to withhold the exculpatory evidence from Mr. Wingenroth,” Siddons said. “The legislators need to hold a special committee hearing on this case and find who at the PGC should be held accountable for such a grievous due process violation. Until that happens, the PGC has demonstrated that it is a rogue agency with zero accountability or credibility.”
When Siddons initially requested the call record, the agency believed it had been discarded, said Travis Lau, a Game Commission spokesman.
“Staff had advised the record was unavailable and recordings of calls to dispatch are only kept for 90 days. Ultimately, though, the record was recovered,” Lau said.
Lau said calls made to the emergency dispatch line are exempt from disclosure, but the agency agreed to release the call record in February because “by that point, we had turned up the record. We did not see the harm in sharing it, so we released it.”
Rep. Dave Maloney, the top Republican on the House Game and Fisheries Committee, said he doesn’t expect a hearing on the matter.
“It’s been said the agency hides and blocks information, but I don’t think a committee hearing would happen because the governor would not want the Democrat majority to let it happen,” Maloney said. “That’s based on my experience with previous issues.”
A judge dismissed the case against Wingenroth due to a Brady Rule violation, which occurs when the prosecution withholds exculpatory evidence from the defense.
Siddons said if the call record had been released prior to the hearing, it’s likely the case would not have been prosecuted. He added his client is not pursuing any further legal action in the matter.
The Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office served as the prosecutor for the case against Wingenroth.
Erik Yabor, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said the office was not aware of the call recording until the hearing. He said the case did not rise to the level of a Brady violation as the Game Commission complied with the subpoena issued by the defense.
“It is our understanding that the recorded conversation, which a witness did produce according to the subpoena, was never played for the judge. It is our determination that that Game Commission was not in violation of the subpoena and not in violation of any Brady obligations,” Yabor said in an emailed statement.
Lau said the information conveyed in the call — that it’s OK to use a drone to locate game — is not accurate.
“It seems clear the employee misspoke,” he said. “Our position on this hasn’t changed: It’s unlawful to use a drone in the recovery of game.”
Sen. Jarrett Coleman, R-Lehigh, has introduced a bill to make it legal to use a drone to recover harvested game.
In a statement, Coleman said he was glad the charges against Wingenroth were dismissed, and he said the Game Commission’s sting that led to the case was “unnecessarily heavy handed.”
“In all my and my staff’s conversations with the Game Commission, they have maintained it is illegal to use a drone to recover game regardless of the location and that statutory changes would be needed to authorize the use of drones,” Coleman said. “While I believe that the issue could be addressed via regulatory changes alone, changes to the law will eliminate any confusion and create a clear legal framework to address the issue.””
