Can You Get Dear With A Dead Deer?

NOVEMBER 16--Meet Bryan James Hathaway, alleged venison lover.

The Wisconsin man, 20, is facing charges that he had sex last month with a dead deer. Hathaway, who previously has served time for killing a horse he intended to sexually assault, allegedly found the deer in a ditch alongside a roadway.

Now Hathaway's lawyer has filed a court motion (a copy of which you'll find here) arguing that since the animal was already dead, Hathaway should not face a misdemeanor rap of sexual gratification with an animal. "The statute does not prohibit one from having sex with a carcass," lawyer Fredric Anderson wrote in the motion filed in Douglas County Circuit Court.

As reported in today's Daily Telegram, in response to Anderson's motion, prosecutor James Boughner noted that state criminal statutes did not seem to "draw a line between the living and the dead."

Judge Michael Lucci, who heard motion arguments Tuesday, said he will issue a decision by December 1. Hathaway is pictured at left in a Wisconsin Department of Corrections mug shot. (4 pages)