AG Today

Ag Today January 5, 2018

FRAUD SUSPECT DESCRIBED AS ‘21ST CENTURY CATTLE RUSTLER’

Published On January 4, 2018 – 4:04 PM
Written By David Castellon

An Exeter man is facing up to 26 years in prison for what Tulare County’s sheriff described as “a 21st-century, modern cattle-rustling case.

“It’s no longer the time when you can look at somebody’s cattle on the field” to buy and sell them, as these days such purchases often are done online and via cell phone, and Justin Tyler used this fact to scam his victims out of at least $1.5 million in money and cattle, Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said in a press conference today.

He said Tyler was arrested Dec. 28 in Texas on a Tulare County warrant. The man didn’t fight extradition, and he was arraigned Wednesday in Tulare County Superior Court in Visalia on 13 counts of grand theft and three counts of investment fraud involving seven reported victims — five from Tulare County, one from Wyoming and one from Colorado.

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