The creek ran along land Manilla, 49, owned in Richland Township. He later told police he had mistaken Groh for a deer.
"I think you should consider yourself lucky. This case was as close to a murder case as I've seen," Cepparulo said, noting that Manilla had profanely threatened to kill another hunter he had seen on or near his property.
Cepparulo also vowed to end the armed arrogance Manilla had displayed for many years before the shooting death.
In 1985, Manilla was convicted of felony assault for breaking a man's skull with a weightlifting bar in Norristown. The crime drew a relatively light four-month sentence, but made it illegal for Manilla to possess most firearms.
Yet he continued to hunt, even after a 1995 change in the law that forbade felons from possessing long guns used for hunting. Manilla's hunting privileges had already been stripped after he was cited in a 1993 episode that left a pheasant hunter shot in the neck, but he resumed two years later.
"Your response, apparently, was to begin to accumulate a cache" of firearms, Cepparulo said. He was referring to the dozens of guns Manilla amassed in the Worcester home he shared with his mother.
Authorities in his 1993 hunting case were never made aware of Manilla's felony record. More recently, when Manilla was nabbed for shoplifting at a Berks County Cabela's store in 2009, he initially was allowed to enter a pre-adjudication probation program normally used for first-time offenders.
Cepparulo was not in such a charitable mood.
"When I am done sentencing you today, you will have touched your last firearm and you will have squeezed your last trigger," the judge told Manilla. "You will never again possess a firearm for as long as you live."
