A Braymer man was sentenced in Federal Court for a $215,000 cattle fraud scheme that he attempted to cover up by murdering two Wisconsin brothers. Twenty-eight-year-old Garland Joseph Nelson was sentenced to 32 years in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $261,000 in restitution to the victim’s families.
In September of 2022, Nelson pleaded guilty to two counts of murder in the first degree in Johnson County, Mo., and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on each count to run consecutively.
On Oct. 4, 2022, he pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, admitting that he defrauded Diemel’s Livestock, LLC, of $215,000 in a cattle contract.
Nelson’s federal prison sentence must be served consecutively to his state sentence.