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Case #15526 Rating: 2.0 out of 5
Horses neglected, some found dead
Fort Smith , AR (US)Incident Date: Friday, Mar 13, 2009
County: Johnson
Charges: Misdemeanor
Disposition: Convicted
Defendant/Suspect: Regan Westbrook
A Fort Smith man was fined in court in Johnson County on 19 counts of animal cruelty after admitting he neglected several horses left for weeks without food.
Regan Westbrook, 47, of Fort Smith pleaded no contest Monday to 19 counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty on the day his trial in Johnson County District Court was to begin.
According to court records, District Judge Len Bradley fined Westbrook $500, ordered him to pay $1,900 in court costs, a $30 sheriff's fee and $6,157.25 restitution to Give Me a Chance Equine Rescue, which has taken the horses.
Westbrook also was given a 30-day jail sentence but it was suspended on the condition he pay the fine and restitution and stay out of trouble for a year.
Christina Wilkerson, vice president of Give Me a Chance Equine Rescue in Amity, said she is seeing more cases of animal neglect and abuse because the recession is putting more people in financial difficulties that jeopardizes not only horses but all animals in the care of people.
"The problem is the economy, and people should take responsibility for their animals," she said.
Wilkerson's organization took possession of 16 horses after complaints led authorities to a pasture in rural Johnson County last March that contained several starving and neglected horses and the corpses or just bones of several more.
The Johnson County sheriff's office began receiving tipsters' calls in December with reports of starving horses. Deputies called Westbrook who said he had been feeding them.
Instead, after receiving the call from the sheriff's office, he moved the horses to an area less visible to the public, a sheriff's report said.
When calls about the horses persisted, a sheriff's deputy went to the area March 13 and found several dead horses. Many of those still alive were starving, and they were reduced to eating bushes and the bark off trees.
Reports by Wilkerson and Larue Pittman, also with Give Me a Chance Equine Rescue, said they found horses with lice, worms, rain rot, overgrown and distorted hooves, and one that had gone blind in one eye.
They also found five dead horses in various stages of decomposition and several piles of bones.
One of the dead horses was a mare that died giving birth to a foal, which also was dead and protruding halfway out of its mother's body.
Another foal, only a couple days old, was orphaned and tried unsuccessfully to nurse from another pony that had adopted it. That foal died, according to Wilkerson's and Pittman's reports.
Wilkerson said the horses are being nursed back to health and some are ready to be adopted. She said the organization is careful about to whom they adopt the animals.
Westbrook could not be contacted Friday for comment. But in a written statement he gave to the prosecutor, he said he ran into financial trouble because of a lengthy illness during which he lost his home and nearly lost his job.
Wilkerson said when people get into such situations, they should sell or give away their animals so they are not in danger of being neglected or abused.
Westbrook said in his statement he tried to sell and later give away the horses but no one wanted them because they were so thin. References
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