Matt Mercier
Oct 11th, 2007 - 9:17 AM
I sent this synopsis in an email to another National reporter who wanted info... If any of this will help use it. It's ALL verifiable via trial transcripts:
March 13, 2007 4 horses got loose out of the fence.
March 14 a yearling filly died of colic and was drug up front to be disposed of. Could not bury her due to frozen ground. I was planning on taking the carcass to the vet clinic when I went to the scheduled appointment on 3/16 with the wire cut horse.
AC got a call from Deputy Deland of Jackson County Sheriff office of inadequate fence
March 14 ACO Heather Wheaton came out and took pictures ALONE on the property. The pictures show the dead horse and 3 skinny horses out of 69. It also shows the filly with a wire cut that was being treated and an appointment with Dr. James Irving of Oakdale Animal Clinic in Homer MI had been scheduled. The other pictures are of fat horses eating from freshly dumped round bales of hay and filled water tanks
March 14 ACO Luce begins calling Ponies R Us (Rescue group) to come in and take all of the horses, trailers, pickup truck, saddles, tractors and equipment. They call persistently for several days even prior to getting a search and seizure order
March 15th ACO Wheaton leaves a posting at the owner's house who was out of town. I am the farm manager and happened to stop there to get something and called her back.
March 16th ACO Wheaton demands a Vet come out for "complete health inspection on all horses"
March 16th Dr. Robert Sray of Northwest Vet Clinic comes out to assess herd. He is Animal Control's own vet of 29 years and a practicing equine veterinarian. He deems the situation to be under control and recommends a simple monitoring of me to make sure I was doing what needed to be done. His exact words were "nothing 30 days wouldn't fix" and "a few older horses didn't winter well".
March 16 I ask ACO Wheaton about a "fix it" ticket. I asked and was told that I would get a specific list of what they would like to see happen and they will monitor me.
March 16 I had to reschedule appointment with Dr Irving due to the time with AC.
March 19th ACO Wheaton contacts my hay suppliers and verifies my purchases of hay. She asks the hay suppliers if they delivered and if they knew if I was really feeding the hay. They respond that they are confident that I feed it seeing as how it's 10 degrees out when I come and get it and they don't sell it to me cheap enough to re-sell it.
March 20th AC comes back out with Dept of Ag Vets with a search warrant. The affidavit for search warrant is clearly purjered. Stating facts of "no food or water found on premises" and that Dr. Sray and myself were "personal friends" and he had "known me since childhood".
Dept of Ag vets recommend "developing management plan with a private practicioner or a Vet designated by AC" themselves. They also note the old and 1 previously ill horse are seperated with "good quality hay and water available". They also note 4 horses needing immediate veterinary care. (wire cut filly and 3 seperated skinny horses). No note of Elvis being injured or thin by State Vets because he was NOT like that on 3/20/07
Dept of Ag leaves and AC decides to Impound property and horses with NO warning at all.
March 20th AC calls and cancels my 2nd appointment with Dr. Irving stating to them "no horse is allowed to leave the property" They wait 7 days to get a vet out there to treat, stating under oath that did fall under the Dept of Ag's recommendations of "immediate vet care".
March 20th was my day to go get hay. Horses were nearly out of round bales that day. ACO refuses to allow any hay to be brought in at that time and tell me I am not allowed under threat of jail to be on the property. ACO Dunlap stated "they have enough hay for the night". I was then told I was allowed to have a friend come on the property to feed as long as a Deputy or AC was present. I was told this was good for 72 hours.
March 20th evening I had a friend bring in some square bales because the next day I was having round bales brought in. At this time it was discovered AC left gates unlatched and several 2 and 3 year old stud colts were loose with the rest of the herd, including open and bred mares. I was not allowed to go on the property and wrangle them seperate, so were left with the rest of the herd. This allowed Elvis (pelvic injury horse) to be severely injured.
March 20 night we were told to leave by the deputy and ACO Wheaton and her civilian husband were left on the property alone. She stated she would feed and water the horses, despite having no idea HOW to turn water on or how much to feed everyone etc...
March 21 I had 10 round bales of hay delivered. AC refused the delivery to be placed out with the horses and instead put 1 bale out for 50+ head of horses. They left the additional 9 bales out front where the horses could not get to.
March 21 Ponies R Us responds to the scene. They are greeted by many officers who appear arrogant and rude. They look through the herd and make arrangements to come back to the property. They begin to question the legitimacy of this due to how many horses were in good condition (great majority of herd) and the allegations that I abandoned the horses 6 months prior.
March 21 5pm approx. Ponies R Us comes back out to the scene. They begin to inspect further. They make a list of 8 horses of 69 that have any issues. They also note that most of the issues are either easily fixable, or normal in a herd of that size ie... cut leg, old mares etc.. They also state the property does need to be cleaned up, but nothing detrimental to the horse's health. Ponies R Us notes it appears AC is doing things to make the situation worse and are planning on pinning those on me. Examples are starving and not watering horses, flooding the barns, turning stallions loose with mares etc..
March 22 Ponies R Us decided to stand up to AC and tell them to give the horses back that the owner's were doing a better job of taking care of the horses than AC. They were told to not come back.
March 23 AC gets search warrant for owner's house to look for registration papers. No ownership was ever in question, however they realized these add value to horses. AC and Jackson County Sheriff helped themselves to ridiculous stuff including alarm clocks, radar detectors, cell phones, tax papers, boxes of "miscellaneous papers" etc...
March 27 Leelanau Horse Rescue and Laura Steenrod came onto the scene. The "story" was broke in the news once they got involved. Outlandish claims and lies were spread via AC and Steenrod, such as "abandoned 6 months with no food or water", "skeletons of living horses everywhere", "dead horses litter the property", "horses living in garbage dump", "horses pawed through the snow to eat the remaining grass", "owners breeding horses for slaughter" (which is just funny because that means we would've HAD to feed them), "30 mares pregnant" (which then changed to 40 and somehow there are only 12 foals NOW), "yearling fillys bred", "owners in hiding" etc...
Continued news coverage of 21 days front page headlines. National media attention including MSN, The Horse Magazine, etc...
Civil Forfeiture trial initiated prior to Criminal due to MCL 750.50 statute.
Dept of Ag vets testify 56 of 69 horses in "ideal or near ideal body condition".
Jackson County's own vet testifies for defense
Ponies R Us Rescue group testifies for defense
1rst day of Defense myself and another person get run off the road on the way to trial. We had driven the same vehicle the same route each day. It did not appear to be an accident.
July 20th Judge Filip of 12th District Court rules forfeiture of all horses. He states the reasons as he "didn't want the rest of the horses to get in the condition" the few skinny ones were. He also said that we must not have cared about the horses because we were buying used blankets and putting on the horses. He also took away all resulting foals even though they were not born during the action. His ruling was ridiculous.
July 20th bound over on 4 year Felony Animal Torture to Circuit Court. The 3 felony counts are for the wire cut horse, skinny grulla mare and pelvic injury horse. 1 misdemeanor count of neglect for the other 66 horses is continued on.
July 23 Bond Hearing. We were required to post $134,000.00 to keep ownership of the horses pending outcome of the criminal trial. No one could tell us if we got the money back when we won. The bond money was for ALL costs supposedly incurred by Jackson County. This was for 3x the amount of feed needed, the costs of re-building shelters at our farm, medical bills for AC officers that were turned into workman's comp etc.. We have been locked off the place since March 20th. They initially impounded our trailers, truck, saddles etc... We finally did get this back, but not before $50,000.00 worth of saddles and equipment were missing and $14,000.00 damage to the pickup truck and more damage to the horse trailers.
Me again ~ can someone who witnessed the first auction write up an informative post for me? I went to the second auction after reading about the fiasco and the condition of the horses sold at the first auction.
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