Texas man gets 99 years for cattle rustling
Aug 25 2011
BETSY BLANEY - Associated Press
LUBBOCK, Texas — An East Texas man with a prolific cattle rustling history spanning more than a decade has been sentenced to 99 years in prison for swindling bovines from a Mississippi rancher.
Carl Wade Curry, 44 from Athens was accused of stealing 400 head of cattle worth more than $200,000 last year.
District Attorney Staley Heatly says Curry placed an order with a Mississippi man using a fake name and cattle company in Vernon, where the owner shipped the cattle. The owner contacted authorities when he didn't receive payment.
A jury in Hardeman County took less than 30 minutes to both convict and sentence Curry on Wednesday evening. In the deal Curry used the name Earnest Jackson.
"He was going to mail me a check and he didn't," rancher David Sanders of Starkville, Miss., said. "Then he was going to Federal Express it to me. Didn't happen."
Sanders had already shipped the cattle to a non-existent address in Hardeman County. When Sanders didn't get paid he called the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. A special ranger with the association located the animals before they were sold.
"They really put their noses to the grindstone and got this guy good," Sanders said.
Testimony at Curry's trial revealed he had stolen 2,097 head of cattle worth nearly $1 million since 2007, Heatly said.
Curry represented himself at the trial but had stand-by counsel by John Weigel, who did not return a call for comment Thursday.
These Texans take their cows seriously, even when they are from Mississippi.
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