BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
A Northwest man with a deeply disturbing criminal record has been sentenced to 43.5 months in prison after pleading guilty to seven felony counts involving unlawful firearms possession and illegal deer hunting.
Ronald Albert Livermore, 77, of Riverside received the “longest agreed recommendation for an illegal hunting sentencing in almost a decade,” according to a press release from the Washington Attorney General’s Office.
This latest case stems from 2023 and 2024 when WDFW officers caught Livermore hunting with a gun despite his firearms rights never being restored from a prior conviction. According to the AG’s Office, Livermore was found driving at night in the Sinlahekin Wildlife Area of Okanogan County, shining a spotlight and “shooting into the woods whenever he saw something he thought might be an animal.”
After initially pleading not guilty, he was released to home confinement while the case was pending trial and ordered to wear an ankle monitor. In the meanwhile, state game wardens found a deer on his property that was paralyzed after having been spine-shot with a bullet fired from a small-caliber gun.
A search warrant served on his home led to the discovery of “multiple homemade firearms in a secret compartment in Livermore’s bathroom.”
“The firearms were made of materials such as umbrella handles, canes, and PVC pipe, but functioned and fired accurately. The officers also found an additional shot deer and evidence that Livermore was baiting deer to his porch and then shooting them,” the AG’s Office reported.
As we reported in the December 2025 issue of Northwest Sportsman Magazine, Livermore’s wildlife crimes go back nearly 20 years and include serving three years in jail in Oregon after pleading no contest in a 2016 case to aggravated abuse of an animal, felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a prohibited silencer.
That case involved a Crook County rancher’s calves, according to the Bend Bulletin, and while sexual abuse of an animal charges were dropped as part of his plea deal, Livermore was required to pay the rancher $3,000 for the loss of the calves. Still, the animal abuse conviction prohibited him from possessing a gun, per the Washington AG.
Prior to that, Livermore was convicted in 2008 of poaching deer in the Prineville area of Central Oregon. Troopers working by air and ground caught him spotlighting in 2007 with a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle and homemade suppressor and said he stored them in a secret compartment in his vehicle.
They said that Livermore, who “is primarily a vegetarian, would usually drive around in the darkness shining his spotlight, and when he saw eyes he would just shoot at them and then drive on looking for more.”
Initially facing 22 charges in that case, Livermore pled guilty to four felony counts of unlawful killing of deer, four counts of wastage and one felony count of possession of an unlicensed suppressor in exchange for prosecutors dropping a charge of attempted sexual abuse of wildlife.
He was sentenced to more than a year in jail and to pay $6,000 in restitution to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for eight deer as well as ordered to undergo a mental evaluation, according to KTVZ. The station reported that most deer he’d shot with his “survivor weapon” were pregnant does.
According to the Washington AG’s Office, this latest sentence “reflects Mr. Livermore’s significant criminal history and the severity of the offenses he committed in this case.”
“Washington’s hunting laws maintain opportunities for hunters while ensuring that hunting is as safe, ethical, and sustainable as possible. Cases like this remind us why these laws exist,” said AG Nick Brown in the news release. “We were happy to work with local law enforcement and the Department of Fish and Wildlife in this case to protect public safety and animal welfare.”
The felony charges Livermore pled guilty include four counts of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, and one count each of first-degree unlawful big game hunting while armed with a firearm, first-degree unlawful big game hunting and unlawful possession of a short-barreled rifle.
The AG’s Office was granted “concurrent authority” from the Okanogan County Prosecutor’s Office to prosecute the case and supported local and WDFW enforcement to investigate it.
“Working together, the AGO added felonies and a firearm enhancement to the initial list of charges. These additions significantly increased Livermore’s sentence, ensuring he is held accountable for his crimes,” the AG’s Office stated.
