COURT CALENDAR
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:
Humane Enforcement
The USDA on July 14 announced penalties levied
against five Class B animal dealers and one exhibitor f o r
multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Pat Hoctor,
of Terre Haute, Indiana, drew a $7,500 fine and 40-day
license suspension; Ronald DeBruin, of Prairie City, Iowa,
drew a fine of $5,000 and a 30-day license suspension; David
Kanagy of Readsville, Pennsylvania, drew a fine of $6,000
and a 60-day license suspension; Clyde and Goldie Rogers
of Rogers TLC Kennel in Gassville, Arkansas, drew a
$25,000 suspended fine and a 6-month license suspension;
Larry Roney of Cougar Acrews in Naubinway, Michigan,
drew a fine of $2,000 and lost his license for five years; and
Kelly Young, of Katt Chez Enterprises in Las Vegas,
Nevada, drew a fine of $8,000 and lost her license for 30 days.
Paul Nemeth, former mayor of Bethlehem
Township, Pennsylvania, was charged on August 2 with
shooting one of 11-year-old Jeanine Chiaffarino’s two
Samoyed puppies––in front of the girl––for purportedly bark-
ing too much in anticipation of her supper. The puppy who
was barking was not the puppy Nemeth killed.
Convicted in late June of cruelly neglecting 237
r a b b i t s, 200 of whom were euthanized upon discovery last
March, San Diego “Bunny Lady” Janice Taylor walked with
five years on probation, during which she may not own ani-
mals while Animal Control may search her premises without a
warrant to ensure compliance.
Rabbit and fighting cock breeders Richard and
Carol Beckwith and their daughter Lori Clay, of Scotts
Valley, Califonia, still denying any wrongdoing, drew 300
hours of community service apiece on August 2 for allowing
Clay’s three daughters, ages 7, 3, and 2, to live amid filth,
dead animals, and rodent infestation at the Beckwiths’ San
Jose farm. They were also barred from again keeping animals.
Forty counts of negligent cruelty filed in July
against cat breeder and vet tech Laura Duffy, 37, of La
Honda, California, as result of an April 29 raid, may become
a court test of the controversial San Mateo County animal con-
trol ordinance, friends told ANIMAL PEOPLE. Five people
who knew Duffy said that while she is no spiffy housekeeper,
her animals are well cared-for, and the April 29 conditions
were caused by two weeks of heavy rain that flooded her prop-
erty and mired her horses––whose plight first brought Animal
Control to investigate. There was contrastingly no controversy
over the June 29 seizure of 16 Persian cats from Pleasanton
breeder Linda Johnston, 47, who allegedly kept them in
“filthy and inhumane conditions,” nor over the order given to
Ann Mitchell of Monte Sereno to get rid of 78 cats, who took
over her 2-story home while she lived in a trailer in the yard.
Rod Coronado gets 57 months
Rod Coronado, who pleaded guilty in March to one
count of aiding and abetting arson of a research facility as well
as lesser offenses, on August 11 drew a sentence of 57 months
in prison and was ordered to make $2,543,901 restitution t o
Michigan State University, Oregon State University, Washington
State University, and Utah State University. Coronado was origi-
nally charged with arson, theft, possession of explosives, extor-
tion, destruction of government property, and illegal interstate
flight, in connection with attacks on the four universities during
1991-1992, attributed to the Animal Liberation Front. Coronado
s the only purported ALF member to be convicted of any offense;
charges against others issued in 1990 were dropped before going to
trial. Within hours of the sentencing, in Kalamazoo, Michigan,
Americans for Medical Progress faxed and e-mailed a press release
claiming Coronado had repudiated the animal rights movement
prior to his arrest––a rather bizarre assertion considering that
Coronado in December 1993 offered to surrender to the FBI if
Washington State would release all grizzly bears held for research
purposes to a wildlife rehabilitation center approved by PETA;
was finally arrested in September 1994 as he left his hiding place
to help an injured bird; and throughout his imprisonment has
issued bulletins affirming his solidarity with other activists.
Coronado, a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, is best known
for sinking two Icelandic whaling ships in a daring 1988 harbor
raid undertaken with David Howitt, sponsored by the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society. He later left the Sea Shepherds
due to a split with founder Paul Watson over the limits of nonvio-
lent direct action.
Other cases
Of 154 British hunt saboteurs arrested in the first six
months since the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of
November 1994 was supposed to halt hunt sabbing, only 11 have
been convicted while 67 cases were dropped before going to court,
according to the Hunt Saboteurs Association.
A charge of trespass filed against Mark Pearson,
president of Animal Liberation in New South Wales, Australia,
was dropped on June 21 because police in Scone, where the
alleged offense occurred, failed to issue a summons within 60
days. On the 59th day, the Scone Shire Council had voted unani-
mously to endorse Pearson’s plea of not guilty. Pearson purported-
ly trespassed while videotaping tethers embedded in the flesh of
sows and piglets at the Parkville Piggery. He subsequently
removed two piglets who needed urgent veterinary care. Charges
of breaking and entering and theft were dropped earlier, after the
Department of Police Prosecutions viewed the videotape.
