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ATLANTA — A 48-year-old Villa Rica man has been sentenced in federal court for attempting to ship deer from Pennsylvania to his ranch in Georgia.

Donald Lee Vaughn was sentenced on Wednesday to pay a $20,000 fine and was ordered to serve six months’ probation

“Shipping wildlife across state lines without testing for illness and disease potentially threatens the health of our wild deer population,” U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said in a news release. “Experts tell us that once diseases spread, they are almost impossible to eradicate.”

Prosecutors say that in 2009, Vaughn paid $6,000 for five white-tailed deer from a dealer in Pennsylvania and then attempted to transport an additional six whitetail deer that he purchased from the same dealer.

The shipment was stopped by a Yadkin County, N.C., sheriff’s deputy. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission determined there were no transport permits or health certificates accompanying the deer.

Federal law requires that any deer shipped out of state to be tested for tuberculosis and accompanied by proper ear tags and a veterinarian’s certificate, prosecutors said. Most states also prohibit introducing deer that are not from a herd certified as free from Chronic Wasting Disease.

The case was investigated by agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service working with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, and prosecuted by Shennie Patel of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary C. Roemer.