A 31-year-old man who claimed he could offer hunters great hunting on private Colorado property was sentenced to prison Monday for stealing thousands of dollars from 17 hunters who paid him upfront fees but never got to hunt.
Denver District Judge William Robbins ordered Jake Cornay to pay $11,975 in restitution and serve a year in the Colorado Department of Corrections. Robbins’ sentence was on top of the 72 days Cornay has already served in the Denver County Jail.
Prosecutor Joe Morales said the hunters answered Cornay’s newspaper ad promoting the “Ultimate Outdoors” hunting club, which guaranteed they would be able to hunt on private property across the state that Cornay leased from landowners.
But Morales said when the hunters went to the properties, the ranchers said they had never been contacted by Cornay and the hunters couldn’t hunt there.
“The way it all started was an ad (saying), ‘I’ve got the property leased, it’s a done deal and you give me the money and you can hunt,”‘ Morales said. “It is insane to steal money from men with guns.”
According to investigators, Cornay started to collect money from the hunters in July and August 2003, kept the money, dissolved his business and fled the state.
One of the hunters, Matthew Steele, told investigators that after he learned he had been scammed, he placed an ad in newspapers asking anyone else who had been defrauded to contact him. Steele then provided their names to the Denver district attorney’s office.
Rick Zetwick , who paid Cornay $675, told the judge that the victims had been deceived by a “willful, creative plot.”
“He gained personally by getting into my wallet and those of others. He cut off his phones and took flight,” Zetwick said.
Cornay was extradited from Oregon. He said he was sorry. “I know I’m going to jail, and I deserve it,” he said. He said he had developed friendships with some of the men.
“I tried, and I failed,” he said.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
