A preliminary hearing is set for January 20 in Anderson County District Court in the case of a Tennessee man accused of multiple felonies for passing nearly $2 million in hot checks to a Garnett cattleman for purchases that were never covered. Bert Smith of Lewisburg, Tennessee, is accused of 10 counts of felony theft, six counts of passing a worthless check and a count of mistreatment of an elderly person, stemming from a series of cattle purchases he made from Ron Ratliff of Garnett, between October and December of 2022.
Ratliff won a civil judgement for $3.7 million, which he says includes charges Smith owes which are not included in the criminal filing. He was in the process of attempting to collect on that judgement last spring. Smith is renown in numerous states for fraudulent cattle purchases dating back to 2001, with numerous felony charges and lawsuits a matter of record and posted on the internet. Still, livestock industry professionals say billions of dollars in cattle are traded each year in the U.S. on little more than a handshake and word of mouth.
