From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

Circuit judge Dennis P.
M a l o n e y of Lakeland, Florida, on
January 24 sentenced Frederick Martin
III, 36, to serve five months in jail, and
also convicted his wife, Janet Martin,
33, who will be sentenced this summer,
for falsely testifying in September 1997
that their son Freddie Martin, 13, had
no previous arrest record. Freddie
Martin and David Clark Elliott, 11,
were charged with felony animal cruelty
for hanging a neighbor’s dog from a tree,
then killing her with a lawn trimmer. In
fact, Freddie Martin was a fugitive from
justice in Ossipee, New Hampshire,
where he was charged in October 1996
for stabbing four pigs, who survived,
and sexually mutilating a sheep, who
died. The Martins moved to Florida after
two hearings in the New Hampshire case.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

AMARILLO––A federal jury in
Amarillo, Texas, on February 26 ruled that
TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey did not
libel beef when she exclaimed she would
stop eating hamburgers while interviewing
vegetarian activist Howard Lyman about
“mad cow disease” in April 1996.
The core of the case failed on
February 17, when Federal District Judge
Mary Lou Robinson held that the plaintiffs
hadn’t proved the food libel charge during
four weeks of testimony. The case continued
on a claim of common-law business disparagement,
which required the ranchers to
prove Winfrey intended malice.

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