MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — William Dalton Edwards, 26, of Mount Airy, N.C., was sentenced to 24 months in prison and three years of supervised release for his involvement in a livestock theft scheme.
Edwards was also ordered to pay $334,350.46 in restitution to the victims of the scheme, which involved the theft of livestock from stockyards and farms in North Carolina and their resale in Texas and Oklahoma.
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The scheme, which ran from April 2018 to October 2022, involved Edwards and his co-conspirator, Clint Clifford Sicking, writing worthless checks to purchase cattle from sales barns in Iredell and Cleveland Counties, North Carolina.
Court documents revealed that Edwards and Sicking transported the cattle out of state before the sales barns and financial institutions could realize the checks were worthless.
The stolen cattle were then resold in Texas and Oklahoma, causing over $350,000 in losses to the family-owned sales barns in North Carolina.
These sales barns are required to pay farmers and ranchers immediately after the sale of their livestock, which compounded their financial losses.
Edwards pleaded guilty on August 2, 2024, to conspiring to defraud the United States and to violate U.S. laws, including hampering the Packers and Stockyard Division of the USDA in its regulation of fair livestock markets.
Sicking has also pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and is awaiting sentencing.
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