{"id":94846,"date":"2019-04-01T17:29:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T23:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-man-accused-of-trying-to-kill-cattle-signs-plea-agreement\/"},"modified":"2019-04-01T17:29:50","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T23:29:50","slug":"durango-man-accused-of-trying-to-kill-cattle-signs-plea-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-man-accused-of-trying-to-kill-cattle-signs-plea-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango man accused of trying to kill cattle signs plea agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A Durango man who was accused of trying to kill cattle in southeastern Utah signed a plea agreement Monday, effectively ending the two-year conflict.<\/span>Brian Maffly\/The Salt Lake Tribune file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Exactly two years to the day, the saga of a Durango man accused of trying to kill cattle after he closed the gate to a corral in southeastern Utah has reached a resolution.<\/p>\n

Mark Franklin, 63, faced a maximum sentence of six years in jail if convicted for \u201cattempted wanton destruction of livestock,\u201d a felony, and trespassing on state trust lands, a misdemeanor, after prosecutors said he intentionally closed the gate to cut cattle off from water on April 1, 2017.<\/p>\n

Franklin was supposed to stand trial<\/a> in Carbon County this week for the charges. On Monday, however, Franklin reached a plea agreement that includes three conditions, which if completed, will result in all charges being dismissed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI entered this plea to end a long, two-year persecution by San Juan County,\u201d Franklin said in a written statement after Monday\u2019s hearing. \u201cThis was a case that should never have entered the court system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franklin and his wife, Rose Chilcoat, a local environmentalist who was also charged in the incident but had all of her charges dismissed<\/a>, have maintained the charges are retaliation for Chilcoat\u2019s years of environmental work in San Juan County, where public land and grazing issues are contentious.<\/p>\n

San Juan County Attorney Kendall Laws, who prosecuted the case, has adamantly denied any such influence. In an interview Monday with The Durango Herald<\/em>, Laws said the evidence collected that day warranted the charges. But he said the agreement reached Monday is a fitting outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s a fair resolution for everybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The felony \u201cwanton destruction of livestock\u201d charge was reduced to attempted criminal mischief, a Class B misdemeanor, and the Class A misdemeanor for trespassing remained the same.<\/p>\n

Over the next year, Franklin must meet three terms of his plea agreement to have all charges dismissed: No new criminal charges, must pay a $1,000 fee and must stay off certain state trust lands, barring emergency situations.<\/p>\n

Franklin said in his statement he would have liked to have gone to trial to have all the facts of the incident brought to light, but he didn\u2019t want to run the risk of a jury trial.<\/p>\n

For the past two years, the case has taken many twists and turns as prosecutors and defense attorneys sparred over what happened that day, and why.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s known is that on April 1, 2017, Utah rancher Zane Odell noticed the gate to one of his corrals had been closed, and trail cameras captured images of the vehicle that stopped there. Two days later, Odell saw the same car driving by, stopped it and called police.<\/p>\n

Speaking to deputies, Franklin admitted he closed the gate. But for the past two years, he has never offered a detailed explanation for why he closed the gate.<\/p>\n

In his statement, Franklin said he is a \u201ccurious person\u201d who noticed an unusual water trough in the corral and went to check it out. He said one of the cattle, a longhorn, gave him the \u201cstink eye.\u201d Two other cows then tried to move behind him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat made me concerned so I pulled the unlatched pipe gate closed to prevent them from surrounding me,\u201d Franklin said. \u201cI did this for my personal safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless, the couple have maintained a large section of the fence was down and cattle had full access to water. Odell has conceded this point<\/a>, saying there was a 10-foot opening in the fence 50 feet away.<\/p>\n

No cattle were harmed and the couple were let go. But nine days later, the San Juan County\u2019s Attorney Office filed felony and misdemeanor charges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that the prosecutor was trying to keep local ranchers and local politicians happy by showing he was willing to go after me,\u201d Franklin said.<\/p>\n

Laws said Monday the charges were in no way political or personal. He said the information included in the police report warranted serious charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt like there was enough evidence for a reasonable likelihood of conviction on the charges we brought,\u201d Laws said. \u201cI know there was talk the seriousness of the charges were politically motivated, but in reality, that\u2019s what the state of Utah Legislature set as the criminal penalty for those actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in recent days, Laws said all sides felt a better resolution could be reached through the no-contest plea agreement rather than a jury trial. He said even Odell was satisfied with the outcome.<\/p>\n

With the case finally resolved, Laws said the entire incident should be a lesson to anyone visiting San Juan County.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people in San Juan County don\u2019t have a problem with people coming to our area,\u201d Laws said. \u201cBut if you come here and recreate, \u2026 respect the way of life people have here, and I think you\u2019d be surprised the respect will go the other direction just as quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, whether on federal or state land, leave a gate the way you found it. That\u2019s the biggest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franklin wrote in his statement the entire ordeal has taken a toll on him and his family, both emotionally through death threats and calls for people to harass them, as well as financially.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho could have imagined that a day recreating in Utah could turn into such a nightmare,\u201d he said. \u201cAs I have learned, it was never about me. This case was meant to punish my wife for her years of successful conservation advocacy and to intimidate and silence those who speak out for protection of their public lands.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

County attorney says charges were never politically motivated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[133,168,1030,1263,2576],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-94846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-environment","tag-ranching","tag-u-s-public-lands-office"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94846"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=94846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}