On Tuesday, CJ Alexander pleaded guilty in Clinton County Superior Court to 14 criminal charges for poaching one of the largest white dollars in Ohio history and fabricating an elaborate story to cover it up. The court clerk confirmed the guilty plea Outdoor living however, he was unable to share details of Alexander’s plea before the courts closed on Tuesday.
In June, Alexander was indicted on 23 criminal charges for alleged poaching, which also claimed the third-largest typical whitetail ever in the Boone and Crockett Record Book before it was confiscated by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in December 2023 Alexander maintained his innocence after ODNR initiated an investigation into the case and doubled down on his innocence after Clinton County prosecutors issued an indictment in June.
Alexander shared with us his story of hunting “Alexander Buck.” Outdoor living in December, just over two weeks before ODNR confiscated the antlers. He told OL that he killed the 200-plus-inch Ohio giant using a borrowed crossbow while hunting on his sister’s 9-acre property in Clinton County. It’s the same story Alexander has kept public for nearly a year and which, according to court documents obtained by investigators, has amassed a mountain of evidence in the form of phone records and metadata. Outdoor living.
These documents, and particularly the phone records they contain, give shape to an elaborate scheme in which Alexander killed a 200-plus-inch buck known as “Alexander Buck” on November 9, 2023, on private property where he did not knowingly do so. have a hunting permit. They show how, after Alexander made a trophy kill with a crossbow, he and his accomplices recovered the illegally harvested buck, and then staged a takeover of his sister’s estate so that he could profit from the deer, mislead investigators, and become the hero of his own hunting story. Court records show that the phone records were obtained through a search warrant and turned over to Alexander and his defense attorney as part of a discovery request.
“They’ll offer me stupid money for this deer head, baby… It’s like buying money in the form of a house… This deer will bring us money” – Alexander texted his fiancée Carissa Weisenberger on October 17, just over three weeks before the infamous killing Alexander Buck.” Other text messages sent in the following weeks, along with accompanying GPS metadata, showed that Alexander had been hunting the bull extensively and expected to kill it on a 49-acre plot of land where he knowingly did not have permission to hunt.
A screenshot from court documents showing samples of text messages sent from Alexander’s phone.
“I’m in camouflage and I’m pretty sneaky,” Alexander said in a follow-up text to Weisenberger on Oct. 26, after she sent a text saying she was worried about getting caught.
Additional text messages, photos, videos, GPS data and Snapchats obtained from Alexander’s phone show how he and his accomplices tried to cover up the poaching by arranging to seize money on his sister’s property the day after she was killed and by tampering with evidence and falsifying documents. These files show that Alexander continued to lie, both to investigators and to others, as news of the case spread.
Read further: CJ Alexander pleads not guilty to 23 criminal charges as poaching trial begins in Ohio
“It’s everywhere baby lol… There’s no going back,” Weisenberger wrote in a text message she sent him on November 13.
Phone records obtained by investigators also show that Alexander profited from a poached deer by selling its antlers to an antler buyer; by selling exclusive rights to his story to a hunting magazine and giving it away to others; and by signing a promotional contract with a hunting company. He allegedly did all this by feeding these people the same false story about how and where the bull was killed.
Alexander could not immediately be reached for comment. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 11 in the Clinton County Courthouse, according to the clerk of court.