2 sentenced in Canajoharie goat theft

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

Canajoharie resident Marigrace Hoag with a few of her Oberhasli goats on her farm on Route 10. Many of her goats were stolen early in the week and returned.

Two Fort Plain men who stole 21 goats from a Canajoharie farm in December have been sentenced to jail time and ordered to pay $1,400 in restitution.

One of the men, 27-year-old Michael Sumner, was sentenced last week to 2 1/2 to five years in state prison after pleading guilty to third-degree grand larceny, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.

The second, 22-year-old Brandon T. Hume, was sentenced Monday to four months of weekends in jail with five years probation after pleading guilty to grand larceny in the fourth degree.

The men are equally responsible for the $1,400 restitution, which is the amount the pair sold the goats for after stealing them from the farm of Marigrace Hoag early on the morning of Dec. 9.

Sumner and Hume sold the 16 adult goats and five kids on Craigslist to a Broome County man for meat, and were arrested just three days later when that man learned via Facebook that Hoag was missing exactly that number of goats.

According to Hoag’s account at the time, the men had to break through a fence to steal the goats from their pens. They then dragged the goats to a nearby cemetery and loaded them into the back of a pickup truck.

Hoag was startled to learn that the buyer had been shown photos of the goats a week before the theft and sale, meaning the men had been on her property, where her and her husband raise three young children.

After learning of the theft, the buyer held the goats and had returned them safely to Hoag by the end of the week.

Hoag has said that the goats are not for dairy, but are family pets.

“We show them, and we breed them,” she said at the time. “They’re like dogs to us.”