Beaver • Several months after a St. George jury cleared two animal activists in a piglet theft case, another representative from the same organization was found guilty Tuesday by a judge in Beaver of trespassing and disorderly conduct at a Pioneer Day event last July at the city’s Main Street Park.
Curtis Vollmar, the legislation and social media manager for the animal advocacy group Direct Action Everywhere, was found guilty by Fifth District Judge Shadrach C. Bradshaw at the Beaver County Justice Court. While the trespass charge is a Class B misdemeanor with the potential for six months of jail time, Bradshaw sentenced Vollmar to a $850 fine for the two charges combined.
Vollmar, 36 of Berkeley, California, led a group from the organization known as DxE that distributed leaflets and spoke to residents at the event last July 23 in support of the defendants in the Smithfield Circle Four Farms trial that was taking place in St. George later that year.
The defendants were acquitted last October of burglarizing the Smithfield facility in nearby Milford. Unlike that trial, there was no jury Tuesday and the judge made the ultimate decision and verdict.
St. George News was not permitted to take video inside the courtroom but was allowed to take still photos during the first hour of the trial and during the verdict.
After the verdict Tuesday, Vollmar said “yeah, definitely” when asked by St. George News if he will appeal.
“I feel that this company has a lot of power over this town,” Vollmar said of Smithfield Foods, which up until layoffs last year employed one of every four workers in the county according to local statistics, including Mayor Matt Robinson. “There’s probably a lot of political pressure to convict me at this court. But it’s just a justice court and I get a free do-over. So I feel like the next go at this will be a better, better outcome.”
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This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.