Case Report

Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department deputies arrested 35-year-old Leroy Trujillo Thursday and charged him with seven counts of extreme cruelty to animals, according to a Metro Court criminal complaint.

Trujillo's arrest came after a neighbor reported there were two dead cows and a dead horse in their pens on Trujillo's Tijeras property, according to the complaint.

Deputies later found a second dead horse on the property and talked to a neighbor who is nursing two dogs and a goat they thought were in danger of starving, the complaint states.

"I don't think it's common to find that many animals (dead)," Cliff Mascarenas, deputy director of the state livestock board said. "Usually it doesn't get to that point where animals start dying . . . Usually we're aware of it before it gets to that point."

One neighbor told deputies she had not seen anyone at the home, located at 32 Quail Hollow Road for about three weeks, the complaint states.

"As the result of his mistreating two Angus steers and two horses, (Trujillo) did cause them to suffer unnecessarily or needlessly," the complaint states. "In addition to the livestock dying he needlessly caused two dogs and one goat to suffer."

Mascarenas said an animal as large as a horse can only live about seven days without water.

"They can survive up to a week, but they're pushing hard when they start going three to four days," Mascarenas said.

It appeared to deputies that a horse whose head was stuck under a pipe fence tried to escape before it died, the complaint states.

Trujillo works as a truck driver for Bernalillo County's Public Works department, county spokeswoman Liz Hamm said Friday.

He is in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in lieu of $30,000 bond, according to court records.

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