Twenty-one-year-old Jarrod Logan Edwards of Gunnison County, one of two suspects in last summer’s theft of at least 20 head of cattle from the Dallas Divide Ranch, was in San Miguel County District Court last week on felony charges.

The 500-acre ranch has lands in both San Miguel and Ouray counties.

Edwards and Dustin Ray Gleason, 22, of Montrose, are charged with the theft of at least 20 Black Angus cattle (each worth well over their initial $1,200 purchase price), a class 4 felony (with a maximum sentence of six years), and with unlawful branding, a class 6 felony.

The theft was reported by cattle owners James P. Kornberg, M.D., and Jerald R. DeJulio  after a late-summer encounter with the suspects, who claimed at the time to be rounding up the Dallas Divide herd to find a lost cow of their own.

In November, Gleason began cooperating with authorities, who now have recovered ten cows from farms in Montrose County and in Kansas.

Edwards asked the court for a continuance so he could obtain legal council.

Gleason claims his involvement in the crime stemmed from the fact that he was “trying to help a friend.”

The next hearing is scheduled for 10:30 a.m., March 15 at the San Miguel County Courthouse.