Man who mailed cow's head gets probation

NORRISTOWN, Pa., Jan. 9 (UPI) -- A Pennsylvania man who shipped a bloody cow's head to a man who had an affair with his wife has been placed on a special probation program.

Montgomery County, Pa., Judge Stanley Ott agreed to the prosecution's request that Jason Fife, 31, perform 50 hours of community service and serve two years probation in a program for first-time offenders, the Pottsdam (Pa.) Mercury reported.

He was charged with sending numerous threatening and harassing letters and e-mail messages to an unidentified man who reportedly had been seeing Fife's wife.

Then on June 1, 2006, the man received a blood-seeping package containing a severed cow's head with a puncture wound to the top of its skull. Fife told police he got the head frozen from an out-of-state butcher shop.

His defense attorney, Henry Hilles, said the sentence was just.

"My client did step over the line here but one can certainly understand his frustration, given that the victim was carrying on an affair with my client's wife," Hilles said.

Fife and his wife have reportedly reconciled since the incidents, the newspaper said.