Cattle rustler sentenced to 99 years

An man with a prolific cattle rustling history spanning more than a decade was sentenced Wednesday to 99 years in prison for swindling bovines from a Mississippi rancher. Carl Wade Curry, 44, of Athens, Texas, was accused of stealing 400 head of cattle worth more than $200,000 last year. Hardeman County District Attorney Staley Heatly said 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 did not receive payment. A jury took less than 30 minutes to both convict and sentence Curry. “He was going to mail me a check and he didn’t,’’ said rancher David Sanders of Starkville, Miss. “Then he was going to Federal Express it to me. Didn’t happen.’’ Testimony at Curry’s trial revealed he had stolen 2,097 head of cattle worth nearly $1 million since 2007. In April, Curry was sentenced to 20 years in a cattle rustling case in Smith County in East Texas, Heatly said. AP