May 19, 2013
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- A Scottsboro man has been sentenced for the illegal possession, transportation and sale of protected reptiles.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn in Birmingham on Tuesday sentenced 43-year-old David Langella to three years of probation for violating a federal law that prohibits the transportation and sale of wildlife taken in violation of state, federal or Indian tribal law.
Langella was accused of traveling to Arizona to capture reptiles, including Gila Monsters and ridge-nosed rattlesnakes, and transporting some of the animals back to Alabama for his own collection. The ridge-nosed rattlesnake is the state reptile of Arizona.
A Gila Monster is a large slow moving poisonous lizard that is native to the southwest United States and northwest Mexico.
Blackburn ordered Langellla to spend the first four months of probation under home confinement.
