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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.
