Authorities have charged a 59-year-old man with multiple animal cruelty felonies after finding 93 dead cattle at his Furnas County feed yard.

Deputy Sheriff Nicholas Vargas was accompanying Omaha-based Producers Livestock Credit Corp. on a trip to repossess cattle from Steven Clason on Jan. 18, according to an affidavit for his arrest.

Vargas and others found the bodies of 93 dead cattle and calves left to rot and be trampled by other cattle.

Producers Livestock Vice President Joel Petersen had been to the property outside Beaver City a few days earlier to inspect animals that had been used as collateral on a loan, according to documents in a bankruptcy case Clason filed Jan. 18 in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska.

Clason still had 900 to 1,000 cattle -- alive but in poor condition, Petersen said in an affidavit.

“The cattle were malnourished, their bones were visible through their hides and many had died. Dead animals lay in the feed bunks and in the yard,” Petersen wrote. “It appears Debtor (Clason) was feeding the remaining cattle over the top of carcasses.”

Water tanks for the animals were dry, documents said.

Court documents show Clason borrowed money on Sept. 22 to buy 2,182 head of cattle, of which he sold 919. As of Jan. 15, Clason owed the company $2.27 million.