ST. GEORGE — The animal activist found guilty of trespassing and disorderly conduct at a Pioneer Day event last year in Beaver is appealing his verdict and for the sentence to be altered to probation with the chance for dismissal.
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 on April 25 and sentenced to a $850 fine.
In the appeal, Vollmar is seeking one of two options — an appeal with a retrial in the Fifth Judicial District Court or that the guilty verdict be held in abeyance during a probation period, then dismissed if the terms of the probation are met.
In last month’s trial at the Beaver County Justice Court, the judge agreed with Beaver County prosecutors that Main Street Park in Beaver is private property because the city leases the land from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Vollmar, who is part of an ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit against Beaver County and several sheriff’s deputies, says his First Amendment rights were violated when he was interrogated by deputies at the Pioneer Day event last July 23.
He was with a group that distributed leaflets and spoke to residents in support of the defendants in the Smithfield Circle Four Farms trial, who we later found not guilty of burglary in their trial in St. George.
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