A 28-year-old Baytown woman convicted of neglecting her horses will begin a 30-day jail sentence with three days of bread and water, courtesy of Harris County Criminal Court at Law Judge Mike Peters.
"She's going to get more than her horses got," Peters said Monday, after signing off on the unusual jail terms for Melissa Dawn Sweeney.
Sweeney was convicted last Friday on two counts of cruelty to animals for severely neglecting the two horses she kept outside her trailer home in Baytown. Each of the misdemeanor charges could have landed her in jail for up to a year.
Instead, Peters sentenced her Monday to 30 days in the Harris County Jail, with the stipulation that for the first three, she must endure his judicially imposed diet of bread and water.
Neither Sweeney nor her attorney, Tom Niederhofer, could be reached for comment.
Sweeney, a former stable worker, was accused of leaving two horses unfed and unsheltered in the back of her Baytown property for more than four months.
When the animals were found in late January, they were boney and emaciated, diagnosed with intestinal infections and a skin condition known as "rain rot."
One of the horses had severe abscesses on his hoofs that made it difficult to stand.
"He was just swaying back and forth in pain because he didn't want to put any weight on either foot," said Assistant District Attorney Tacie Ball, who prosecuted the three-day trial.
Sweeney testified that she fed the animals about 28 pounds of food a day and attributed their condition to their advanced age. The horses were in their mid-20s. Healthy horses can live into their early 30s.
The jury of six women convicted her of both counts and sentenced her to 365 days in jail. The jury probated her sentence, meaning she will only have to serve that sentence if she violates the terms of her probation. In this case, the 30 days in jail with dietary restrictions were imposed as part of her probation.
Investigators from the Harris County Sheriff's Department's livestock division received a complaint in January and found Sweeney's horses living in a muddy, trash-strewn lot and drinking from dirty puddles behind the home in 4200 block of Redell.
Jim Boller, the director of field services for the Houston office of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, said Sweeney's case appeared more egregious because she had worked in a stable.
Ball, the prosecutor, told jurors that the mistreatment appeared to be the result of laziness.
One of the horses was later euthanized and the other has been adopted and is now healthy and living in Montgomery County, Ball said.
Peters told Sweeney she could serve her 30 days in jail on weekends during the next several months, allowing her to continue to care for her three children.
Sweeney's sentence also requires her to post blown-up photographs of her malnourished horses on her jail cell wall.
"So she'll have a reminder of what she did," Peters said. Neighborhood MapFor more information about the Interactive Animal Cruelty Maps, see the map notes.
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