Jacumba

The owner of eight horses killed for insurance money was sentenced Monday to one year in prison for defrauding an insurance company.

Two others connected with the scheme, in which the horses were driven to their deaths in a trailer off Interstate 8 near Jacumba in 1983, were placed on probation and fined, but given no jail terms.

Raymond Paul, 53, of Keyes, Calif., received the one-year sentence from U. S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving. Paul had pleaded guilty several months ago to mail fraud.

The driver of the trailer, Leonard Autterson, 49, of Lakeside, and horse trader Bobby Griffin, 46, of Lufkin, Tex., received fines of $500 and $1,000. Autterson has previously served 10 months on a separate state conviction for animal cruelty.

The judge ordered Griffin placed on 30 months’ probation and Autterson on 36 months’ probation.

Autterson and Griffin pleaded guilty in March, 1988, to conspiracy to defraud the Hartford Fire Insurance Co., which had insured the horses for $83,000. All of them could have received five years in federal prison and $250,000 in fines.

Awaiting sentencing July 17 on a mail fraud conviction is Rocky Beene, 48, of Junction, Tex.

The staged accident occurred May 16, 1983, while the horses were being shipped to Griffin, who is a well-known horse trader in Texas.

Originally two others were named in the 1988 indictment, but one of them, Martin Bailey, 44, of Santee, had all charges dismissed last year, and Beene’s son, Brent Beene, 25, of Vandervordt, Ark., negotiated a “deferred prosecution” agreement, under which charges will be dismissed next year if he stays out of trouble.