Mullins took a plea bargain last year, pleading guilty to complicity to grand theft and complicity to cruelty to animals, a misdemeanor. She faced 18 months in prison for the felony and 90 days in jail for the misdemeanor.
Mullins’ eyes filled with tears as she offered an apology to the alpaca’s owner, Jeff Pergram, who was not in attendance, and thanked the court for letting her out on bond so she could care for her daughter.
“I understand and I acknowledge the mistakes I made,” she said, “I am deeply regretful for the decisions I made.”
She testified in the trial of 18-year-old Miller who was convicted of breaking and entering, tampering with evidence, vandalism and grand theft following a November trial.
Before imposing Mullins’ sentence of one year of intensive community control and four years of basic regulation, the judge acknowledged the young mother cooperated with investigators and had no previous criminal record.
Intensive community control includes random drug and alcohol screening and face-to-face visits with a probation officer six times a month, according to Gary Yates, the county’s chief probation officer. Basic community control involves the same drug testing and three face-to-face contacts a month.
Defense attorney Patrick Binns said Mullins is “contrite” and understands what she did is wrong.
Mullins, who has been out on bond, has spent the past two weeks in Georgia with her husband who is serving in the Army, Binns said.
“She has tried to make amends for what she has done,” Binns said, adding the incident is “a sad end to a sorry episode.”
Mullins’ Last week, county Common Pleas Judge Keith Speath sentenced Miller to 14 months behind bars.
Mullins, Miller, Nicholas Reynolds, 19, stole the baby alpaca — named Masterpiece and valued at $8,000 — from Pergram’s Browns Run Road farm in January 2010.
According to Butler County sheriff’s detectives, the baby alpaca was beaten to death and its body dumped in a Montgomery County barn.
According to prosecutors and evidence presented at Miller’s trial, Mullins did not hit the animal, but drove the teens to the farm where the animal was snatched out of a pen. She also drove the teens to dispose of the carcass.
Oney also told Mullins to stay away from the co-defendants. She must be in school or employed and if she is not, the judge ordered her to serve 10 hours a week of community service up to 500 hours. Mullins also was ordered to share payment of restitution for the animal with the co-defendants.
Reynolds was sentenced in October to 20 months in prison by Spaeth after pleading guilty to his part in the incident and to charges of attempted failure to comply with a police officer for an incident that occurred later in the year.
Mullins still faces a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor in juvenile court in connection with the second incident, which involved Reynolds. That case is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing 8:30 a.m. Feb. 11 before Butler County Juvenile Judge Kathleen Romans.
That event resulted in him wrecking her car after drinking alcohol, according to prosecutors.
Contact this reporter at (513)
8209
-
2168
or
lpack
@coxohio.com.
About the Author
