State v. Lapping

Joseph E. Mahoney, Presiding Judge.

Appellant, Arthur G. Lapping, purchased farmland in Southington Township, Trumbull County, Ohio, in the summer of 1988 with the intent of raising cattle. Appellant was an osteopathic physician by profession and knew little about the cattle business. Consequently, he contacted a cattle dealer, Larry Nosse, who sold him twenty-eight head of beef cattle over a period of six months beginning in October 1988 and ending in April 1989.

In March 1990, the Trumbull County Sheriffs Department received information that a dead cow was floating in a pond on appellant’s…