This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A jury has found Iron County rancher Marvin Jay Hunt guilty of misdemeanor wanton destruction of livestock for castrating his neighbor's horses in 2013.
The 79-year-old man and his son, 41-year-old Colby Elias Hunt, each were charged in 5th District Court with a second degree felony for gelding the animals, including a prized stallion.
But jurors on Friday found Marvin Hunt guilty of a lesser class A misdemeanor count, based on their assessment of the value of the horses.
The charge is punishable by up to a year in jail. Sentencing is set for Sept. 6 before Judge Keith Barnes.
A trial for Colby Hunt, who also is charged with third-degree felony witness tampering, is set to begin Aug. 2.
What the Hunts' neighbor Allen Bailey has described as an "Old West range war," originated because Bailey's 25 horses grazed on a 10,000-acre plot of grassland north of Beryl alongside cattle, llamas and about 20 horses owned by the Hunts.
In about 2009, the Hunts told Bailey they didn't want to breed their horses with his anymore, so Bailey moved his Missouri Foxtrotter registered stallion, Confetti Magic, to a friend's spread about 100 miles away, Bailey said. But he brought the stud horse back after discovering his mares had mated with stud horses in the Hunts' herd.
A new social order developed upon Confetti Magic's return, Bailey told The Tribune in 2013.
"My stallion basically took over the herd because he's the big daddy — the oldest, dominant one," Bailey said. "He was giving me some beautiful colts."
But the Hunts preferred chestnut and bay quarter horses to Confetti Magic's pinto genes, and when both owners refused to remove their stud horses, "that started the feud," Bailey said.
Bailey's horses began to appear in the Hunts' corral, according to court documents. Bailey said that in 2012, he noticed his mares did not foal on their usual schedule and they produced a generation of bays — with no pintos.
In April 2013, Bailey called deputies to report his horses were penned in the Hunts' corral, investigators wrote in charges. The horses were released later that day, but Bailey found that at least four of the males had been gelded — including Confetti Magic.
Investigators interviewed a local horse trainer who said the Hunts had enlisted him to perform the gelding on the day Bailey reported the horses had been taken, deputies wrote. The gelder said he had thought the horses belonged to the Hunts, deputies wrote.
The gelder also said that Colby Hunt had asked him to tell investigators that he "was only 'looking at the horses' and not to say anything else about the incident," deputies wrote.
Bailey said Confetti Magic's value decreased by several thousand dollars, to that of a typical riding horse, from its original value of more than $10,000, plus the loss of future offspring.
In 2013, Marvin Hunt called the allegations a "trumped-up charge."
In September 2015, the Hunts filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming their civil rights had been violated when authorities arrested them before trying to establish ownership of the horses, which they said were grazing unbranded on the open range with their own horses and drinking from their watering facilities.
Officers also never investigated whether Bailey was correct in his claim that the value of the horse before its castration was at least $5,000, the lawsuit said.
Additionally, the Hunts say their right to exercise freedom of religion was violated when they were not allowed to wear their religious undergarments under their jail clothes.
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