Austin Petr of rural Blue Hill was sentenced Thursday to three years of probation for stealing cattle in Clay and Webster counties.
Petr, 28, was sentenced in Adams County District Court by Judge Stephen Illingworth. He ordered that the probation sentence in each case be served concurrently.
Webster county and Clay county accepted no contest pleas from Petr March 20
Seven charges of prohibited sale of livestock were dropped by prosecutors and Petr pleaded no contest to two counts of theft by receiving stolen property in the Clay County case, each a Class 1 misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Prosecutors In the Webster County case reduced the charge to an attempt., Petr pleaded no contest to one count of attempted theft by unlawful taking, a Class 3A felony punishable by up to three years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. As part of the plea agreement, Petr agreed that the sale proceeds plus interest from the cattle sold by previous court order be paid to the alleged victim (rightful owner) in the case, Alan Johnson. Petr also agreed he has no claim to any remaining cattle in Johnson’s possession that had not been sold pursuant to the order.
On January 13, 2017 Alan Johnson reported his cattle had been stolen. He reported that the cattle went missing between 5:30 pm and 7;30 am. He notified the Webster County Sheriff, Troy Schmitz, who called George Horton, chief investigator for the Nebraska Brand Commission. Horton testified in a Feb. 28, 2018 hearing that after the call from Schmitz he received another call indicating the cattle had been located at the Sutton Livestock auction barn. The cattle were located by Alan Johnson and friends.
According to Hortons testimony upon arriving at the barn and found 30 unbranded calves mingled with 40 head of branded cattle consigned by Petr to be sold.
Of the 30 unbranded cattle, 27 had DNA matching cattle belonging to Alan Johnson of Blue Hill. Johnson reported earlier in the day that the cattle went missing between 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 12 and 7:30 a.m. the following day.
Johnson tracked his cattle to the Sutton Sale barn and told Horton that he could identify the unbranded calves. DNA testing was done on the 30 head of unbranded cattle. The samples were compared to Johnson’s herd and 27 of the cattle matched.