Lab dog dealer C.C. Baird is sentenced
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2006:
LITTLE ROCK–Former laboratory dog and cat suppliers Chester
Clinton “C.C.” Baird Jr. and his wife Patsy Baird, both 59, were on
July 14 sentenced for multiple violations of the federal Animal
Welfare Act. U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes gave C.C. Baird three
years on probation including six months of home detention, and fined
him $7,500. Holmes gave Patsy Baird two years on probation, and
fined her $2,000.
The Bairds and two of their five daughters in August 2005
paid $262,700 in fines to settle civil charges against them,
forfeited $ 200,000 cash from “ill-gotten gains,” paid more than
$40,000 in restitution to animal welfare groups that rehabilitated
and placed 215 dogs and 145 cats seized from the Bairds in 2003 and
2005 USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service raids, and turned
over their home, land, and kennel, worth about $1.3 million, to
the USDA.
Now employed in construction in Dallas, the Bairds rapidly
expanded their laboratory dog and cat supply business after the 1990
incorporation of stronger anti-pet theft language in the Animal
Welfare Act brought the exodus of more than 90% of the then-active
lab dog and cat suppliers in the U.S. from the field.
“In a strange twist,” wrote Linda Satter of the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette, “Last Chance for Animals president Chris DeRose
testified [before the sentencing] on the Bairds’ behalf. DeRose said
that four weeks ago Baird provided a briefing to a Congressional
subcommittee to explain enforcement problems with laws governing
dealers that ‘invite breaking laws.'”
The HBO America Under-cover series in February 2006 aired
video obtained by a Last Chance for Animals operative who in
2001-2003 worked for Baird, and was credited by U.S. attorney Bob
Cummins with enabling the prosecution.
Earlier, however, USDA attorney Colleen Carroll told Todd
Frankel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that her office did not use or
even view the Last Chance material.
The USDA first cited the Bairds for Animal Welfare Act
violations in 1991. Others credited with helping to bring them to
justice have included Animal Lobby founder Cindy Schultz and In
Defense of Animals “Project Hope” director Doll Stanley.
