COURT CALENDAR
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:
Humane enforcement
High school principal and biology
teacher Jerry Slyker and his wife Paula, of
Hardin, Montana, obtained five cats through free-to-
good-home ads in October, gassed them in a box
with car exhaust, and had students dissect the
remains––including at home gatherings where they
were boiled down to bones. After giving Paula
Slyker her 7-year-old daughter’s cat because the cat
wasn’t box-trained, Billings Gazette reporter read of
the exercises in the paper and uncovered the deceit
by confronting the Slykers. Hardin Schools
Superintendent Rod Svee said Slyker wouldn’t be
disciplined because he hadn’t violated any board pol-
icy. Dave Pauli, regional director for the Humane
Society of the U.S., has asked state superintendent of
schools Nancy Keenan to “ask for the immediate dis-
missal of Mr. Slyker on the basis of unethical, fraud-
ulent, and potentially illegal behavior.” Friends of
Animals asks that letters requesting prosecution of
Slyker for cruelty and pet theft via fraud be
addressed to Christine Cooke, Big Horn County
Attorney, 121 West 3rd St., Hardin, MT 59034; or
fax 406-665-1608.
The Los Angeles SPCA probably won’t
be able to prosecute missing Ocicat breeder
Judith Norman, 50, for allowing 28 of the ocelot-
like housecats to starve to death, says executive
director Madeleine Bernstein, even if they find her,
because volunteer rescuers who saved four survivors
disturbed critical evidence by removing carcasses
and “knee-deep cat manure.” The cats were discov-
ered in Norman’s Lawndale apartment about five
weeks after she apparently moved without
notice––but a rent check was received three weeks
after that. The survivors are being care for by the
rescue group People and Cats Together. Off-site
building manager Mae-Dell Lacey donated $500 to
help cover their veterinary bills.
Vikki Kittles, delaying prosecution on
42 counts of animal neglect through various means
since April 1993, has been extradited back to Clatsop
County, Washington. District judge Berkeley Smith
has given county animal control director Tommie
Brunick the okay to place 115 dogs and four cats
seized from Kittles in foster homes, but finding
homes has been slow because of the animals’ special
needs and Kittles’ reputation for harassing anyone
involved with the case. Kittles, with a coast-to-coast
history of animal-collecting behavior, is also the
only suspect in the disappearance several years ago of
her elderly mother, who was last seen living in a van
Kittles owned in Florida. Kittles chained a number of
large, aggressive dogs around the van.
Santos Rodrieguez, 32, of Plainfield,
New Jersey, was charged October 26 with assault,
cruelty to children, cruelty to animals, and harass-
ment for decapitating a kitten and throwing the head
at the three children of his former girlfriend, ages 9,
11, and 13, with whom he lived. Although prosecu-
tions are so far rare, anti-stalking laws adopted dur-
ing the past few years by at least forty-five states per-
mit prosecutions of cruelty to animals as an offense
against human beings––with stiffer penalties––if the
apparent intent is to intimidate or threaten.
Hindi sues DuPage
Chicago Animal Rights Coalition founder
Steve Hindi on November 3 sued DuPage County
States Attorney James Ryan and the DuPage County
Forest Preserve for alleged false arrest after a protest
against a population control deer roundup and slaughter
on February 1, 1993. Hindi was cleared of all charges
after fellow CHARC member Mike Durschmid admit-
ted he and not Hindi had been trespassing in the forest
preserve, trying to retrieve video equipment CHARC
used in an attempt to document the slaughter. Hindi is
seeking $550,000 in punitive and compensatory dam-
ages.
Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund
U.S. District Judge Helen
Frye on November 2 awarded Sierra
Club Legal Defense Fund a t t o r n e y s
Victor Sher and Mike Axline over $1
million in fees, at $205 an hour, for
the time they spent in successfully
suing the Bureau of Land Management
for failing to protect threatened spotted
owls. Sher and Axline won their case,
after a six-year battle, last January.
Earlier they won $760,000 in fees from
the U.S. Forest Service. The awards
were made under the federal Equal
Access to Justice Act. Since Sher and
Axline are paid by the Sierra Club
Legal Defense Fund, the SCLDF will
actually collect the money.
In another Sierra Club Legal
Defense Fund action, the U.S. Forest
Service agreed November 7 to study
the impact of grazing in the Sierra
National Forest, settling a lawsuit filed
last February by SCLDF on behalf of
California Trout, the California Native
Plant Society, and American
Wildlands, who charged that overgraz-
ing has severely damaged the habitat.
Activism
New York-based TV talk show host
Ricki Lake, 26, headed the list of 14 arrestees at a
November 14 PETA protest in the Fifth Avenue
headquarters of fur designer Karl Lagerfeld. All
were charged with misdemeanors.
Rod Coronado, held by federal author-
ities in connection with a series of arsons at fur
farms and laboratories, has been extradited from
Arizona, where he was arrested, to Michigan, near
the scene of an arson that destroyed the offices of
University of Michigan mink researcher Richard
Aulerich and Karen Chou, an apparent accidental
victim, who was researching the use of sperm cells
as an alternative to the use of animals in toxicity
testing. A Rod Coronado Support Committee has
been organized at POB 1891, Tucson, AZ 85702-
1891. Coronado himself may be addressed c/o the
Newaygo County Jail, F4445, POB 845, White
Cloud, MI 49349.
The North American Animal
Liberation Front, with a post office box in
Victoria, British Columbia, claims to have been
burglarized on October 22, losing a computer, fax,
modem, address book, diary, telephone, and com-
puter disks which included an unpublished edition
of the NAALF newsletter. Also taken, a NAALF
spokesperson said, was underwear––but a stereo,
VCR, and TV set were left behind.
