Man arrested in alleged hunting scam on three NM ranches

An Old Snowmass resident turned himself in Wednesday on an arrest warrant stemming from him selling elk-hunting licenses for thousands of dollars online and allegedly failing to provide them. Joshua Meacham, 27, who faces two counts of felony theft, sparred with Pitkin County sheriff’s investigator Brad Gibson about whether his alleged actions were a criminal or civil matter, the arrest affidavit says. His arrest followed a nearly year-long investigation. An alleged victim contacted Aspen police in November, and the agency turned the case over to Gibson shortly afterward. This person told Gibson that in March 2014 she learned about a hunting tag good for private property in New Mexico that was for sale on eBay. Using a friend’s computer and eBay account, she said she bid $3,625 on the tag, enough to win the auction. She used PayPal to pay Meacham for the tag. “I tried to call him a number of times and never had any luck getting a hold of him,” the alleged victim told Gibson in an email. “I started getting a very bad feeling toward this deal as I had received all the rest of my landowner tags, and I still wasn’t getting anything from Josh. … I called PayPal, and since 45 days had run out, I ran out of time to dispute the charge for $3,625.” Gibson said he learned during his investigation that the state of New Mexico allows private landowners in the state to sell wild-game licenses to anyone. People can buy private land tags and then try sell them at a profit. “I later contacted representatives of these ranches,” Gibson wrote. “No one had ever heard of Meacham.” The alleged victim told Gibson of three ranches in New Mexico for which Meacham said he had tags, the affidavit says...more