A Clinton man who broke a fawn’s pelvis with his bare hands and shot a doe with a pellet gun is serving time in Island County jail.

Ian K. Montgomery, 73, pleaded guilty in Island County Superior Court earlier this year to two counts of animal cruelty in the first degree.

The judge sentenced Montgomery to three months in jail, with one of those months converted to electronic home monitoring. He was also ordered to pay $562 in restitution to an Oak Harbor veterinarian and $817 in fines and fees.

An officer with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife investigated the case last summer after Montgomery’s neighbor reported the deer abuse.

The neighbor claimed that Montgomery was shooting at a doe and her fawn because they were eating his apples. The doe ran off, leaving a blood trail, according to the Fish and Wildlife report.

The neighbor claimed that Montgomery picked up the fawn and twirled it “as if it was a wet towel he was going to snap,” the report states. She said she yelled at him and he put the fawn down.

The tiny deer was unable to stand, but was still breathing when a Fish and Wildlife officer arrived to investigate. The officer took the 2-month-old blacktail deer to a veterinarian clinic, where an X-ray showed the fawn had a fractured pelvis. It was euthanized.