Court calendar

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

Ray County, Missouri, prosecutor
Stanley Thompson, who reputedly once
explained his failure to pursue a cruelty case by
telling a local newspaper, “I don’t do dogs,”
on July 14 charged regional Horse Aid representatives
Becky Burns and Angela Williams
with second-degree burglary and four counts of
felony horse theft. Burns and Williams were
arrested and jailed incommunicado for 20
hours, HorseAid cofounder Enzo Giobe told
ANIMAL PEOPLE, after attempting to
recover three ponies who were allegedly being
neglected and mistreated, including a stallion
who had not been gelded, in evident violation
of adoptor Floyd Stokes’ contract with
HorseAid. Under the contract, HorseAid
retains the right to reclaim animals at any time
if adoption conditions are not met, and the
adoptor waives the right to ever sell the animals.

While Burns and Williams were sent to
lock-up, their children, who were with them,
were left unattended at the police station for 90
minutes to two hours, Giobe said. Williams’
husband was then allowed to take them home
without presenting identification, Giobe added.
The Newfoundland Supreme Court
of Appeal in July dismissed Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society founder Paul Watson’s
appeal of his 1995 conviction of mischief, for
piloting the Sea Shepherd vessel C l e v e l a n d
A m o r y in a high seas confrontation with the
Cuban dragnetter Rio Las Casas in July 1993.
The judges also dismissed a Crown appeal of
Watson’s acquittal on on more serious charges.
Former Makah tribal police chief
Lionel Ahdunko has been fined $3,500,
ordered to do 100 hours of community service,
and sentenced to serve a year in federal prison,
after pleading guilty to illegal possession of an
automatic weapon while working in 1997 as
police chief for the Washoe Tribe of Nevada.
Ahdunko also drew three years on probation
for making false statements in a police report
about an accident involving a tribal vehicle he
reportedly admitted using on personal business.
Makah tribal council chair Ben Johnson s a i d
the case was prosecuted only because the S e a
S h e p h e r d s drew attention to it after clashing
with Ahdunko during anti-whaling protests.
Supreme Court Justice Ken
M a c K e n z i e, of Queensland, Australia, on
August 2 sentenced palm-reader A n d r e w
Richard Fitzherbert, 50, to life in prison for
allegedly killing Cat Protection Society president
Katheen Marshall by stabbing her more
than 50 times at her in-home cat hospital during
late February or early March 1998. Fitzherbert
and his companion Ruth Bennett w e r e
allegedly aligned with key witness V i r g i n i a
H o u s t o n, 45, in Cat Protection Society
infighting so fierce that all 70-odd members
were questioned by police as potential suspects.
Sheep farmer Finlay Glynn
R o b e r t s o n, 57, of remote Derrinallum,
Victoria state, Australia, was denied bail on
July 16 after allegedly shooting Royal SPCA
officer Jason Nichols in the face at close range
after Nichols tried to question him about nine
starving sheep––whom Robertson reportedly
shot earlier in the discussion. Nichols survived
with severe face and throat injuries. RSPCA
inspector Stuart Fairlie, was killed 30 miles
away by an unknown assailant in 1989.
New Mexico Game and Fish
Department attorney Stephen French o n
July 14 told Albuquerque Journal investigative
writer Colleen Heild that his agency, biologist
Patrick F. Ryan, and the Hornocker Wildlife
I n s t i t u t e have tentatively settled a civil suit
brought against them in September 1998 by
former Hornocker biologist Jenny Cashman.
Cashman charged that Ryan kept her drugged
with bear tranquilizers and repeatedly raped her
in 1996-1997, when Hornocker employed both
to do research for the Game and Fish Department.
Criminal charges may yet be filed.
Police reportedly recovered videotapes from
Ryan that showed him having sex with Cashman
while she appeared to be semi-comatose.

PETA CASES
PETA on July 6 won felony cruelty
i n d i c t m e n t s––the first ever issued in
Virginia––against Belcross Farms e m p l o y e e
Russell Crawford and former employees
Raymond Sanchez and Kelly Brown, whom
a PETA undercover investigator reportedly
videotaped over a three-month period in the
alleged acts of beating crippled pigs with a
metal bar, sawing the legs off a conscious pig,
and skinning pigs alive.
This is PETA’s second recent attempt
to expose the common practice of killing suspected
unhealthy pigs by blunt trauma––a practice
which is specifically forbidden by law in
Minnestoa, but which Animal Humane
Society cruelty inspector Keith Stref admitted
using himself at his sister’s pig farm in a recent
hearing before the Minnesota legislature.
PETA’s previous case failed on July
30 when pig farmer and Graham High School
vocational agriculture teacher Steven L.
Jenkins, 41, was acquitted of alleged cruelty
in Urbana, Ohio, in a case filed at request of
PETA after a student at his direction killed a
piglet by bashing the piglet’s head against the
school parking lot.
Earlier, PETA undercover video
secured the July 12 conviction of Howard
Baker, DVM, of East Brunswick, New
Jersey, on 14 counts of cruelty to dogs and cats
in his care. Baker was fined $3,500, ordered
to perform 90 days of community service, and
obtain anger management counseling.