Ohio YouTubers plead guilty to 40 poaching charges

Youtubers Deer Poaching Columbus Ohio Wildlife Officers and Columbus Metro Parks Officers with items seized during the poaching investigation of William I. Bethel and Justin A. Booth. (Ohio Department of Natural Resources)

By Mersadie Curtiss, WHIO.com

COLUMBUS — Two Ohio YouTubers plead guilty to a combined 40 charges after a poaching investigation.

28-year-old William Bethel and 23-year-old Justin Booth, both from Columbus, are known YouTubers as Creek Kings Outdoors, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR).

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The investigation that spanned more than a year uncovered evidence of poaching by Booth and Bethel from 2019 through 2024 in Three Creeks Metro Park and other properties that the men did not have permission to hunt.

The pair’s YouTube channel featured videos of poached white-tailed deer.

They claimed to have harvested the deer in Kentucky, but investigators found that those deer were taken from Ohio.

Bethel and Booth were charged in September 2025 and pleaded guilty to 20 counts each in May 2026.

They have been ordered to pay a combined restitution of $29,219.32 and were ordered to serve nine days in jail during the upcoming 2026-2027 hunting season and suspended from hunting for 531 days.

The pair were each placed on five-year reporting probation and a five-year ban from Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks properties.

Booth and Bethel also had their fishing, hunting, and trapping privileges revoked for five years.

William Bethel pleaded guilty to the following 20 counts:

  • Five counts of hunting deer without a permit.
  • Three counts of hunting deer in closed season.
  • Failing to game check deer
  • Hunting with the aid of a motor vehicle.
  • Three counts of hunting without permission.
  • Two counts of possessing deer taken illegally.
  • Four counts of possessing untagged deer parts.
  • Three counts of criminal trespass.

Justin Booth pleaded guilty to these 20 counts:

  • Hunting deer without a permit.
  • Five counts of hunting without permission
  • Two counts of failing to game check deer.
  • Aiding a wildlife offender.
  • Three counts of possessing a deer taken illegally.
  • Two counts of possessing untagged deer parts.
  • Taking more than one antlered deer in a license year.
  • Obstructing official business
  • Four counts of criminal trespass.

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