Jackson County Now Owns Allegedly Neglected Horses
Reporter: Beth Shayne
Email Address: beth.shayne@wilx.com
The charges are 5 pages long--a bill for four months worth of care for the 69 horses Jackson County Animal Control seized from the Turn 3 Ranch, and the 15 foals born since. If 15 foals were born, they better bring 15 foals to the public auctions, or all hell will break loose. There are already rumors circulating that some of the "special" horses have been adopted out into new homes, when the court clearly stated that all animals were to be sold at public sales to recoup the costs to the county. Many people are watching the horses that have turned up at the sales so far and know which ones will be MIA if they don't list them in the catalog for the final auction in November.
"I truly believe this is extortion," Matt Mercier, who managed the farm says of the bill.
A judge ordered Tuesday that Mercier and his boss, James Henderson, Jr. pay that bill by 5 pm Wednesday, or lose the horses. They'd pledged to do it--until they saw the nearly $135,000 total. Don't miss the blog entry about donut delivery.
"It was almost as if they were doing everything they could to make sure we'd lose the horses--to make sure we coudn't pay," Mercier says.
Mercier points to a hospital bill for treatment of an animal control officer injured on the farm as unfair. It amounts to about $6,000 dollars. He says the amount they've spent on hay would feed three times the number of horses on the ranch.
He says the county is looking to profit by selling off horses. Why ELSE would it allegedly ignore far worse cases of neglect in the county, yet seize healthy well-bred horses known to be worth $5,000-10,o00 each ... it only makes sense.
Acting County Administrator Randy Treacher says not. "Honestly, our hope was they'd take the horses back....There is no money to be made because we are only getting back what we've spent." Read. That. Again. He HOPED they would take the horses back. Why would anyone say that about men awaiting a trial on felony torture charges unless he KNEW that they were not guilty? Is it even possible to conceive that someone would HOPE such a thing if they were guilty of abuse or neglect? Attention Mr. Treacher: the horses should have never been seized, and the right thing to do would have been to give them back a long, long time ago, if you were so concerned about the amount of money it would cost to maintain them.
He stands by the restitution bill, as only fair to the county's taxpayers. "If it hadn't been in bad condition, we wouldn't have spend as much money as we did," he says.
Treacher says Jackson County has not decided what to do with the horses now that they own them, but sale or auction is likely. He says it's the best way to ward off the future cost of caring for them. Mr. Treacher allegedly sent a note to a concerned citizen stating that these horses sold at public auction would not end up in slaughterhouses because "slaughter is illegal" ... Mr. Treacher needs to hear about how many horses cross the U.S. borders every day on their way to a slaughterhouse outside of this country. Selling them for as little as $100 to anyone with the cash is NOT doing what is in the best interest of the horses. Legitimate rescue groups adopt out horses on contract to screened applicants and follow up to make sure they are properly cared for.
"We need to move expeditiously to do something with these horses," Treacher says.
Mercier says the county is using this as a way to raise money to build a new animal shelter, of which they are in need. Treacher confirms plans to build a new shelter, but calls that allegation ridiculous.
Mercier and Henderson will stand trial on charges of animal torture and abuse. A trial date has not been set.
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Some of the charges were posted on an internet message board:
Here is the break down as what the county is justifying the 143,000 for
6000 in volunteer medical expenses (apparently they got hurt on the farm)
1300 for t-shirts with the rescue logo
500 for cell phone overages
736 for photo boards
4200 in feed (what happened to all the donations?)
89 to the NOAA center... (???)
32,000 in animal control over time fees (including kennel help and people who answer phones)
31,000 in animal control wages (including kennel help and people who answer phones)
760 for misc things (tarps, extension cords, steel tent pegs, hoses)
95 service call for a vet twice in the same day.
85 for necropsy
80 for necropsy
350 because the necropsy was for a legal case
274 for a whole bottle of dermosidan (sp)
22,000 a month to feed them until the criminal charges have gone through
3500/month for misc medical bills
they want to provide every horse with 1/2 bale a hay per day (some horses will get 1 whole bale a day) 6 round bales PER day in additions to the square bales a day. (justification for the 22,000 they say they need to pay for feed)
They also say it takes them 9 hours/day to feed.
Don't forget $100 to Laura Steenrod for hauling fees.
$241 for tractor fuel on 5/28 and $373 again on 7/16!
Oh and $320 for hay on 6/1 AND $640 on 6/1 AGAIN
And $660 for hay on 6/28 AND $310 on 6/28 AGAIN.
But wait.. $1750 for hay on 7/18!!!
Oh and $2500/month to Great Northern Sentry for NIGHTTIME SECURITY AGENT. Now keep in mind they leave the lights (ALL OF THEM) on 24 hours a day, on my electric bill.
The above may be hearsay, you can argue ... or you can go to www.glhorsetruth.com and look at the actual bond request from Animal Control.
More tidbits from the bond request:
Here are some interesting figures.
Since 3/21/07 they have had 349,600 pounds of hay delivered.
At the high end of 2.5% of body weight and assuming they ALL weigh 1000# (weanlings/yearlings etc.) the horses should have consumed 207,000 pounds for 4 months
This is only what they say are expenditures. Again, what about the donations!
Another crazy thing was the medical costs. We stipulated to $1817.10 which was they spent. Even though it was all to Dr. Hammer and he never provided information as to WHAT he actually did. The receipts they provided us only state a number of hours he was at the farm @ $95/hour. They of course did bill us for medicines. 20 horses received tetanus toxoid vaccines. No others, just tetanus. No reason why listed???
Hammer was there 3/27, 4/4, 4/26, 5/31, 6/6, and 6/21. It was a $35 farm call plus $95/hour.
They apparently did a lot of sedating. 25 ml Domperidone. A WHOLE BOTTLE of Dormosedan. Tobugesic. Xyla-Ject. Acepromazine. 100 needles and 80 syringes!
MSU charged AC $350.00 for a "legal charge necropsy" for Elvis in addition to $85 gross necropsy and $120.00 full necropsy. A necropsy equaled $555.00.
AC also bought 20 syringes and and 36 shots of Oxytocin from Crosroads Animal Hospital in Jackson on 5/1.
I can't make these figures up. They are directly from the reciepts the Prosecution provided.
Here's some more information for you:
The first week of seizure 6 AC employees worked a combined time of 195.7 hours BEYOND their regular schedules
6 employees of AC worked OVERTIME:
4/2-4/15: 93.6 hours
4/16-4/29: 107.5 hours
4/30-5/13: 159.2 hours
5/14-5/27: 139.0 hours
5/28-6/10: 172.3 hours
6/11-6/24: 123.2 hours
6/25-7/8: 174 hours
7/9-7/19: 99 hours
A grand total of time spent in 4 months BEYOND Wheaton being there 8 hours per day: 1263.5 hours
Total overtime $ requested by prosecution: $27,864.21
Here's a kicker the Judge bought: Heather Wheaton apparently worked 132 hours in a 2 week period! Not once, but twice! C'mon!
Jennifer Lamp and Kim Luce asked and received a total of $63,596.17 for Animal Control employees in a 4 month period! That is $16,000 per month to feed round bales to horses and clean a maximum of 5 stalls!
You also have to believe that every single employee of AC was at the farm that much? Yeah right. In the 2 weeks of seizure the Kennel help (2 employees) and the CLERK spent 73.7 hours there BEYOND the working at the pound?
No wonder Jackson County Animal Shelter smells so bad... The kennel cleaners were hanging out at the Turn 3 Ranch making $16.65 per hour and the clerk who answers the phone was making $19.24 per hour! These are their own figures!
There you have it. Do some homework on this case before jumping to conclusions. Things just aren't right in this picture.
2 comments:
For starters, can you get the local County newspaper to publish this bill? The cost to battle this out with a County government would be astronomical. This needs coverage from something like Fox Cable News or 20/20. Even that would be difficult to do, because this case has become so complex. This bill pretty much says it all though - regardless of whether or not the defendants were guilty. (And I don't believe that they were). I've been blogging on a similar case in Kansas.
See: http://kswatcher.wordpress.com/
Fortunately, the Kansas Bourbon County government didn't buy into it. I am of the opinion that the accused man in Kansas should sue the private rescue group that attacked him. It might help prevent this kind of thing from happening to other people in the future. Some of these animal rescue groups are out of control and their tactics need to change.
All it takes is a picture of one skinny horse, and the public will generally believe them.
So tell me, were the defendants' names and address published in the media before charges were filed?
From the Leelanau Post: "Local farmers have contributed hay, the chief need at this point, but funds are being collected by LHR to provide for medical and other expenses"
So what happened to the money that Leelanau Horse Rescue collected and the free hay that was contributed? With so much news coverage, I can imagine that a substantial amount of money was contributed by the public.
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