BRENTWOOD – The theft of a rare snake worth $10,000 led to the conviction of a Haverhill, Mass., snake dealer who bought the exotic Axanthic killer bee ball python for roughly $500.
“There is only four of them in the world,” Assistant County Attorney Jerome Blanchard said of the snake yesterday. “One of them sold overseas for $10,000, so it’s at least worth that. Maybe more than $10,000.”
Scott Seavey, 38, of Haverhill, Mass., was convicted on Thursday in Rockingham County Superior Court on a felony count of receiving stolen property.
Jurors in the case had to learn about how a coveted snake wound up created in New Hampshire, after the victim, Kevin McCurley, spent eight years genetically designing the unique kind of python by tinkering with recessive genes.
McCurley said yesterday the success rate for breeding such a snake is exceptionally slim.
Stolen last year, this exotic Axanthic killer bee ball python has an estimated value of $10,000.
Before the theft last September, he sold one of the four pythons to a reptile dealer in England for $10,000. That store, in turn, sold it to a private collector for $15,000, McCurley said.
McCurley had to aid Hampstead police in searching for and handling the snake late last year when detectives executed a search warrant at Seavey’s business, CV Exotics in Hampstead.
“It was a great relief once we saw it,” McCurley said yesterday. “Once we realized it was stolen, I thought it could have been anywhere.”
During the trial, Blanchard had to explain to jurors the value of the python in the world of snake collecting.
“They’re all the same snake, but in 20 or 30 different colors,” Blanchard said. “It’s like a car with 50 different paint jobs, but in this case you’re dealing with four recessive genes.”
McCurley’s snake, which has been back in his possession since it was found, did not make an appearance in court. Blanchard used a chart of different pythons instead.
McCurley, owner of New England Reptile Distributors in Plaistow, had an unusual role in the trial, being both the victim and the state’s expert in the case.
“I really, truly tried to be unbiased, even though I was the victim,” McCurley said.
Plaistow police were called to McCurley’s vast shop, located on Route 125, in late August, about two days after the snake was stolen.
Joshua Rogoff, 29, of Haverhill, Mass., who frequented the store because his girlfriend worked there, eventually admitted stealing to the snake and selling it to Seavey. Rogoff pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft and was sentenced to 60 days in jail.
Seavey, a former apprentice of McCurley’s, claimed to Plaistow police that he did not know the snake was so rare, according to court documents and prosecutors. He made that same claim at his trial, in which a jury convicted him after hearing testimony from several witnesses.
Seavey is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 10 on a felony charge, which is punishable by 7 1/2 to 15 years in state prison.
McCurley, who has been a victim of employee theft in the past, said he worries that Seavey could walk away with a light sentence because people do not understand the dollar value of the snakes he deals with.
“If I had a jewelry store and lost a specialty diamond — say the only one in the world — that is something people would understand,” McCurley said.
He said he plans to speak in front of the judge at the sentencing hearing to lobby for a sentence.