The Bedford County man who pleaded guilty of rustling cattle that were recovered at a farm west of Interstate 65 in Marshall County was handed an effective sentence of 30 years on Monday.

Mark Robert Carter, 30, who had been living in rented quarters north of Shelbyville when he was arrested a year ago, had already been sentenced to four years in the state penitentiary, District Attorney Chuck Crawford said.

But with consecutive sentencing by Circuit Court Judge Robert Crigler, the confessed thief now faces up to three decades behind bars for all the charges in Bedford, Marshall, Moore and Lincoln counties, Crawford said.

Six theft cases and two drug charges were concluded with the court action arising from an investigation concluded by Bedford County Sheriff Randall Boyce, who had been in office less than two months when he got information from a Marshall County sheriff’s detective.

That led to a roundup in Mooresville the morning after Carter was taken into custody. His arrest on the cattle rustling charges led to other charges and solutions to a series of thefts. In the weeks thereafter, a wide variety of farm implements were recovered as well as various vehicles.

The investigations led to other charges in other judicial districts, but Crawford didn’t have a record at hand on what’s happened in those cases.

Lawmen who developed the case with Boyce included two investigators with the state's Agricultural Crime Unit who could not be named, Bedford County detectives James “Scooter” Bonner and Brian Farris and Marshall County Sheriff's Capt. Norman Dalton and Detective Bob Johnson.