COURT CALENDAR
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:
Michigan activists Patricia Marie Dodson, 48, of
Royal Oak, Hilma Marie Ruby, 59, of Rochester, Robyn
Rachel Weiner, 25, of Farmington Hills, Gary Howard
Yourofsky, 26, of West Bloomfield Township, and Alan
Anthony Hoffman, 47, of Roseville all were charged with
breaking and entering and mischief on April 2, two days after
the Ontario Provincial Police arrested them during their alleged
second attempt to release mink from the Ebert Fur Farm in
Blenheim, Ontario. About 300 of 2,400 resident mink were let
out of their cages the first time, and 1,500 the second, of whom
1,100 were recaptured, 300 died of exposure or were roadkilled,
and 100 were unaccounted for. Yourofsky and Dodson were
reportedly regional PETA contacts. The five are represented by
civil rights and animal rights lawyer Clayton Ruby, one of the
most prominent and popular figures in Canadian law, not related
to Hilma Ruby.
San Francisco attorney Baron Miller, acting for the
ad hoc Coalition for Healthy and Humane Business
Practices, on April 14 sued 12 local vendors of live animals as
food for alleged violations of humane law. Miller assembled the
coalition of 10 animal rights groups and 75 concerned individuals
in part through a letter published in ANIMAL PEOPLE.
The case is to go to status conference on September 19.
The state of Indiana began force-feeding Indianapolis
anti-fur activist Tony Wong, 16, on March 26, 30 days into a
hunger strike he commenced after receiving a 60-day sentence
on February 24 for violating probation given for a previous
arrest by trespassing during a Fur Free Friday protest.
Kendall County, Illinois, on April 4 dropped
charges against Chicago Animal Rights Coalition founder Steve
Hindi for allegedly violating probation on an early 1996 summary
trespassing conviction by getting arrested for hunter harassment
later in 1996 in McHenry County.
British vegetarian chef Simon Beavis, 26, on April
17 won back unemployment benefits that were taken from him
when he refused to take a job that included boiling lobsters.
Eighteen months after an ANIMAL PEOPLE
e x p o s e of alleged animal collecting by International Society
for Animal Rights founder Helen Jones led to her enforced
retirement, acrimony continues over the succession. Former
staffer Anthony McHugh on March 24 filed a civil suit against
Jones, who has not actually had an active role in ISAR since
January 1996, ISAR board president Henry Mark Holzer,
executive director Susan Altieri, who is also McHugh’s aunt,
and Cindy McHugh, believed to be his mother, alleging that
they “intentionally conspired to force and coerce the plaintiff
from his contractual capacity” with ISAR “by insisting that the
plaintiff participate in blatant illegal activities including but not
limited to alteration of documents, diversion of funds, falsification
of minutes, and other related activites.” The suit did not
supply details. McHugh asked for damages of $750,000. Holzer
did not respond to a request for comment. McHugh filed his
suit about one month after the firing of animal care specialist
Sylvie Pomicter, who had attended the ISAR cats and dogs
since 1995, and recently raised extensive complaints about the
imminent relocation of the organization to smaller, less costly
headquarters. Pomicter especially objected that the animals
would no longer have the run of the offices; that the dogs would
have kennel runs rather than regular walks; and that the cats’
wet food rations, still within the norms of longterm care shelters,
have been decreased. Because the cats have been exposed
to FIV and FELV, they cannot be placed elsewhere.
Factions associated with The Fund for Animals and
PETA have reportedly agreed after a year of dispute that Theo
Capaldo is the legitimate president of the New England AntiVivisection
Society, but remain in conflict over the status of
t r e a s u r e r Richard Janisch. Pending out-of-court settlement,
crossfiled lawsuits are to be heard on June 9. The Fund and
PETA led a joint takeover of NEAVS in 1988. Fund president
Cleveland Amory doubled as NEAVS president through 1995,
then nominated Capaldo to succeed him. PETA president Alex
Pacheco opposed the appointment. An estimated 300 membership
proxy ballots, expected to confirm Capaldo’s election,
instead vanished on the eve of the 1996 NEAVS annual meeting.
The PETA faction, with a narrow board majority, then installed
Pacheco as president, until Capaldo was returned to office in
September 1996 by the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney
General.
