A Jasper County judge sentenced a Rogersville man to six years in prison Friday for having 10 head of stolen cattle in his possession last October outside the Sarcoxie Livestock Auction.
Circuit Judge David Mouton at a hearing in Joplin assessed Melvin J. Fincher, 25, the prison term for receiving stolen property. The judge ordered that the sentence run concurrently to terms the defendant recently received in two other counties.
Fincher was assessed two seven-year terms in March in Barton County for forgery and theft of livestock. He received seven-year terms in Webster County in May on two counts of theft. All his sentences will run concurrent.
Fincher was one of four suspects nabbed by Jasper County sheriff’s deputies in the early morning hours of Oct. 22 outside the Sarcoxie Livestock Auction at 3758 Century Lane. A passing truck driver tipped the deputies to a suspicious truck and trailer at the auction yard.
Deputies located two pickup trucks occupied by two men and two women, and a trailer with 10 head of Charolais cattle inside. The occupants could not produce any paperwork for the cattle and offered differing accounts to deputies concerning the origins of the cattle.
Fincher and Justin R. Vaughn, 25, of Springfield, were placed under arrest on warrants that had been issued one week earlier in Barton County charging them with theft of other livestock. The cattle in the trailer at the auction yard subsequently proved to have been reported stolen in Cooper County.
Two women in Fincher’s and Vaughn’s company, Kimberley S. Kelly, 31, and Angel R. James, 25, both of Springfield, also were charged with receiving stolen property. Kelly pleaded guilty in January and received a suspended imposition of sentence with five years on probation. The cases of Vaughn and James remain pending in Jasper County Circuit Court.
Parting promise
Convicted cattle rustler Melvin Fincher told the judge as he was leaving a Jasper County courtroom Friday afternoon that he intends to stay out of Jasper County when he gets out of prison.
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