Federal judge sentences Lyon to 10 years for cattle scam

FORT WORTH — Federal Judge John McBryde sentenced Tony Lyon, of Perrin, to 10 years in prison Friday morning.

Lyon pleaded guilty to a cattle-buying scam in November.

The judge said federal sentencing guidelines for Lyon’s crimes were 70-87 months but he believed the severity and his criminal history warranted a stiffer penalty.

“I have concerns about the repeated criminal conduct of the defendant,” McBryde said.

Lyon served a 37 month sentence for a conviction of another cattle fraud offense in 2001 followed by 5 years of probation.

“Apparently, it didn’t cause him to straighten up,” the judge said. “Then he got a $450,000 line of credit on assets, cattle, that did not belong to him and sold cattle that did not belong to him.”

The judge is referring to another case against Lyon in 2011. He was not criminally prosecuted and there was no civil judgement against him for it.

McBryde heard a statement from Jason O’Connell, one of the owners of Midwest Cattle Marketing of Sydney, Nebraska, the company Lyon defrauded of more than $5 million. O’Connell said Lyon’s scheme put he and his partner, his uncle Tom, out of business. 

“It ruined us,” O’Connell said. “I lost my retirement, my son’s college fund. My uncle is 63 and he lost his retirement.

“I know Tony Lyon is not sorry. On June 26, 2015 I asked, how could he do this to me? He said, ‘You shouldn’t have trusted me.’”

To read more about the sentencing and the cases against Lyon including the 2011 offense, see the March 31 edition of the Herald-Gazette.

This article was edited at 4:25 p.m. Friday, March 24. Earlier it had the victim's name misspelled.