Man sentenced to jail in Ohio fishing tournament scandal facing new Pennsylvania charges

HERMITAGE, Pa. (AP) — One of two men who admitted stuffing fish with lead weights and fish fillets last year in an attempt to win thousands of dollars in a walleye fishing tournament on Lake Erie in Ohio is facing new charges in Pennsylvania.

Chase Cominsky, 36, of Hermitage was charged by the Pennsylvania Game Commission last week with eight wildlife crimes in Mercer County, all involving whitetail deer.

The Sharon Herald reported that the game commission’s northwest region wardens received allegations that Cominsky had taken several antlered whitetail deer either after legal shooting hours or during closed season and without a valid license between 2013 and 2021. During that period, Cominsky’s hunting privileges in Pennsylvania were suspended. The charges involve unlawful killing or possession of game and unlawful acts on licenses, tagging and reporting of big game kills.

The newspaper also reported that officials found five antlered whitetail deer heads in the living room of Cominsky’s residence that had been mounted between 2013 and 2021. Three were illegally tagged with another person’s name, officials alleged.

Cominsky and Jacob Runyan of Ashtabula, Ohio, were sentenced in Ohio in May to 10-day jail terms after pleading guilty in March in Cuyahoga County to cheating and unlawful ownership of wild animals. Cominsky also agreed to give up his bass boat worth $100,000. Both men were fined and also agreed to three-year suspensions of their fishing licenses.

The cheating allegations surfaced in September 2022 when Jason Fischer, Lake Erie Walleye Trail tournament director, became suspicious that fish they turned in were significantly heavier than typical walleye. A crowd of people at Gordon Park in Cleveland watched as Fischer cut the freshwater fish open, and found weights and walleye fillets stuffed inside.

A preliminary hearing is set for Nov. 14 on the Pennsylvania charges. The attorney who represented Cominsky in the walleye tournament case told The (Toledo) Blade that he would not be representing him in the Pennsylvania case; a message seeking comment was left Saturday for an attorney representing Cominsky in another Pennsylvania case.