BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) - A man now living in Franklin County, FL, who illegally collected endangered snakes and shipped them to his Connecticut home has pleaded guilty to illegally transporting protected wildlife.
William Carl Bartlett entered his plea Wednesday in federal court.
Prosecutors say Bartlett, a collector of snakes and other reptiles, took two kingsnakes from the Outer Banks of North Carolina in violation of that state's laws and brought them to Connecticut to breed. In July 2012, he shipped 10 kingsnakes via overnight courier to a person in Pennsylvania.
Prosecutors say he also collected five coastal plain milk snakes in Maryland in 2015 in violation of state law and brought them to Connecticut.
Bartlett formerly lived in Cheshire, Connecticut, but now lives in Eastpoint, Florida.
He faces up to two years in prison at sentencing Feb. 28.
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