COURT CALENDAR
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:
Humane enforcement
Superior Court judge William Patrick on May 3
sent poodle breeder Charlotte Spiegel, 56, of Oroville,
California, to Chowchilla state prison for a 90-day pre-sentenc-
ing evaluation. A jury on March 15 convicted Spiegel of abus-
ing 350 dogs seized in two 1993 raids and later forfeited to the
Northwest SPCA. Patrick also ordered Spiegel to forfeit 57
dogs seized in later raids, and made her liable for up to
$260,000 in restitution to the SPCA for holding the dogs.
The Ottawa Shores Humane Society is in reported
financial distress after the scheduled May 16 trial of accused
animal collectors Earl Postema, 65, and his daughter Karen
Zalsman, 38, was postponed to mid-July because they fired
their attorney. OSHS volunteers in late March removed 72
goats, eight horses, and eight rabbits from their farm in Nunica,
Michigan. Four dead goats were found in a manure-choked
barn, and a dead colt was found in a field. Postema was reput-
edly involved with the Michigan militia, a private paramilitary
force whose events Oklahoma City bombing suspect Tim
McVeigh at times attended.
America Nelson, 63, once a nationally noted
expert in treating emotionally impaired and retarded chil-
dren, was found on April 8 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, living
with her 86-year-old mother Blanche Nelson and five dogs in a
feces-filled car. Another 24 dogs were discovered in her equally
filth-filled house. Nelson, who was sent to a psychiatric hospi-
tal, dropped out of professional view about 15 years ago.
Inmate response to Jason Tapper, Jan Pyatt, and
Roy Elliot, serving time in Pennsylvania for the torture-killing
of Duke the Dalmatian last year, has been so hostile that Tapper
was transferred to another prison while the other two have been
housed with child molesters––the lowest caste of prison society.
Robert Homrighous, 42, of Oakland Park,
Florida, on April 28 drew four months in jail and five years on
probation for burying nine puppies alive last January 15. The
case drew national note when the mother, a Rottweiler mix
named Sheba, broke off her chain and drug them up, attracting
neighbors’ attention. Six pups survived, and after being taken
into custody along with Sheba, were adopted out. Homrighous
will not be allowed to keep pets during his probationary period.
The U.S. District Court for Southern New York on
May 3 awarded Andrew Gluckman, 22, $15,000 for the death
of his newly adopted dog on June 23, 1988, who spent over an
hour in a hot cargo hold while awaiting takeoff in Phoenix.
Admitting fault, American Airlines offered Gluckman a bag-
gage loss settlement of $1,250, but he sought further damages
even after a February 1994 U.S. Second Circuit Court ruling that
he could not sue for anguish or loss of companionship.
The British High Court on May 10 declined to
review the death sentence imposed on Saxon, a four-year-old
bull terrier whom owner Amanda Bullock holds is not a pit bull
and therefore not subject to Britain’s pit bull ban. The three-
year-old case has cost $16,000 in legal aid and kennel fees.
Offenses against humans
Japanese and Australian authorities are probing
reports by aboriginal nomads that the Aum Shinri Kyo sect tested
homemade sarin nerve gas by killing 24 sheep at Banjawarn
Station, 500 miles northeast of Perth, before allegedly releasing
it in the Tokyo subway in March. The Tokyo attack, for which
no one has yet been charged, killed 12 people and injured 5,000.
New York City police officer Francis X. Livoti, fac-
ing trial for strangling Florida security guard Anthony Baez after
Baez’ football hit his car during a December pickup game, is “a
lover of bear hunting and ballet,” according to Clifford Krauss of
The New York Times. Livoti was subject of 11 previous brutality
claims in his 11 years on the force.
Eco-terrorism?
The parcel bomb that killed California Forestry
Association lobbyist Gilbert F. Murray, 47, on April 24 was
probably sent by the so-called Unabomber, the FBI said. Sought
for 15 bombings since 1978, which have killed three people and
injured 23, the Unabomber since 1993 has also hit two biomed-
ical researchers and a former executive for the Burson-Marstellar
public relations company––the latter, he told The New York
Times in a letter published April 26, because the firm represented
Exxon after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Linking himself to radical
environmentalism in the T i m e s letter, the Unabomber before
1993 showed no interest in either animals or the environment.
Rancher Tom Kelly of Deming, New Mexico, on
April 15 discovered someone had extensively vandalized his
water tower and shot 20 cattle dead within two miles of the water
tank. The site is leased from the Bureau of Land Management,
and the mode of attack was anonymously advocated about five
years ago in the radical environmental newspaper Earth First!
Vegetarians must be warned
Vegetarian sheriff’s deputy Wayne Andrews, of
Boulder, Colorado, was awarded $477 on April 26 by magistrate
Terrence Hunter because Pasta Jay’s chef Jay Elowsky repeatedly
failed to warn him that a “meatless” marinara sauce contained fish
paste. The sum was the cost of the meals in question.
