Animal Abuse: Horses beaten - vet charged - Doylestown, PA | Pet-Abuse.Com Animal Cruelty Database

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Case ID: 3924

Classification: Beating

Animal: horse

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Case #3924 Rating: 2.6 out of 5

Horses beaten - vet charged
Doylestown, PA (US)

Incident Date: Wednesday, Apr 30, 2003
County: Bucks

Disposition: Convicted

Defendant/Suspect: Sean K Saltsburg

Case Updates: 3 update(s) available

A Doylestown Township veterinarian has been charged with beating clients' horses in three incidents in 2002 and 2003, as well as neglecting other horses in 2003. After a five-month investigation, the Bucks County District Attorney's office has charged Sean K. Saltsburg, 36, of Windridge Drive, with cruelty to animals and recklessly endangering another person.

Assistant District Attorney Lisa Woodward said Saltsburg attended a preliminary arraignment Thursday before District Justice Phillip J. Daly in Doylestown and was released on unsecured bail of $75,000. She expects a court date to be set in four to five weeks.

Woodward said Saltsburg was charged with three misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals and two misdemeanor counts of recklessly endangering, each with a maximum jail sentence of two years, and five summary offense counts of cruelty to animals, each with a maximum of 90 days.

County Detective Richard A. Munger Jr. described the allegations in a Feb. 18 affidavit.

Last July, Munger wrote, Cheryl Zimmerman told him of a May 2003 incident at Constellation Farms in Doylestown Township, where she and her husband, Gary, breed horses.

Saltsburg visited Constellation for a pregnancy exam of a 4-year-old mare, she said, at which the vet twice declined to tranquilize the horse.

When Saltsburg probed the animal, Zimmerman told Munger, it kicked the vet and the vet kicked back, "causing the horse to lunge forward... pinning Zimmerman against the back wall of the stall."

Then the vet hit the horse with an axe handle, Zimmerman said, severely enough that the horse later was found to have a displaced jaw and to be blind in one eye.

Last October, Munger interviewed Maria Vorhauer, operator of a horse farm in Hilltown Township.

Vorhauer said that in spring 2003, Saltsburg visited a yearling suffering from colic. After the vet declined a request to tranquilize the animal, Vorhauer said, the vet inserted a tube into the horse's nose.

When the horse kicked the vet, Vorhauer said, "Saltsburg then punched [the horse] in the nose with such force that the horse flew backward and fell to the ground."

The vet kicked and punched the horse for up to two minutes, Vorhauer told Munger.

Last month, the detective interviewed Rebecca Bisilliat, who he said operates a horse farm in Buckingham Township.

During a 2002 visit by the vet, a colt knocked a cap off his head while he was inserting a thermometer into its rectum, Bisilliat told the detective.

The vet walked to the front of the horse and after it reared up, Munger wrote, Saltsburg "punched the colt in the nose. Bisilliat stated the colt backed up and pinned Bisilliat between the wall and the colt's hindquarters."

Munger also wrote that Michael Decher of Autumn Breeze Farms in Plumstead Township said in 2003 he evicted three horses that Saltsburg was boarding there because "conditions in the stalls were deplorable and unhealthy for the horses."

Case Updates

Saltsburg was initially charged with misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty, but those charges were reduced to summary citations - similar to a traffic ticket - as part of a plea bargain.

A summary offense, less serious than a misdemeanor, is typically disposed of by paying a fine. But Bucks County Court Judge Albert J. Cepparulo gave Saltsburg the stiffest sentence he could - 90 days of probation - and ordered the veterinarian to get his barnyard temper into anger-management classes.

Saltsburg was sentenced to nine months of probation on July 11 after he pleaded guilty Monday to reduced chages - a count of animal cruelty and two counts of disorderly conduct.

Saltsburg lived in Bucks County when he was accused of abusing horses at farms in Buckingham, Doylestown and Hilltown townships in 2002 and 2003. He now is a practicing veterinarian in Laurel, Maryland.

The Pennsylvania veterinary licensing board is now investigating the case and could strip Saltsburg of his right to practice.

The vet also must take anger management classes. He could be facing civil lawsuits from the horse owners.

In 2003, Saltsburg was sued for malpractice by Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, who said he "actually killed" her horse by botching a pregnancy exam. That case was settled in August.

When asked what happened with Nene, Saltsburg gave this account in court: "We got into an altercation. We both hit the wall, and [the horse] subsequently went blind."

That drew a pointed response from Cepparulo. "How in the world could you have engaged in an altercation with an animal that could have caused the animal to go blind?" the judge said.

Source: The Morning Call - July 12, 2005
Update posted on Jul 30, 2005 - 11:39AM

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Four people painted Dr. Sean Saltsburg as a cruel veterinarian who abused horses that didn't take kindly to his medical care. Saltsburg's friends and supporters called him an animal savior and all-around "great guy."

It will be up to a jury to decide which description best fits the Doylestown Township vet after District Justice Philip Daly ruled there was ample evidence Monday to try him on animal cruelty charges.

Saltsburg will be back before a judge at noon on April 29 in Bucks County Court to be arraigned on eight charges of animal cruelty and two counts of reckless endangerment.

"In my experience, it seems any case involving animals brings out people," said Keith Williams, Saltsburg's attorney. One of those people - Connie Nesteruk of Doylestown - held a sign with photographs of several animals and the words "Dr. Sean saved our lives." Others said Saltsburg is the victim of a witch hunt.

Three of Saltsburg's past clients claim he punched and kicked horses while examining them in 2002 and 2003. A fourth person said Saltsburg deprived at least one of his own animals of food and water and also punched and kicked another when it refused to board a trailer.

Police began investigating Saltsburg in January after the owner of a Buckingham horse farm reported that the vet punched one of her colts in the nose after it reared up while he was taking its temperature. Rebecca Bisilliat said Saltsburg hit her horse in its jowl. "It was only one hit, but it was a hard hit," she said.

Cheryl Zimmerman of Doylestown Township said Saltsburg hit her horse in March 2003. She said the horse kicked Saltsburg when he was giving her a pregnancy exam. She said the vet kicked her horse and hit it with a "twitch," an ax handle with a piece of leather attached used to control a horse by placing it on its upper lip. She told Saltsburg to stop after she saw the horse's left eye filled with blood.

The defense attorney suggested the horse might have injured its eye by running into a post. He also said Zimmerman continued to allow Saltsburg to treat her animals after that incident.

Meanwhile, a Hilltown horse owner - Maria Vorhauer - said Saltsburg punched her horse in the mouth and kicked it in the stomach in spring 2003.

Before the hearing, several people defended Saltsburg.

Richard Worth of Doylestown said Saltsburg cared for his animals for more than five years and "never once have we ever seen him abuse or do anything remotely cruel to our animals. The guy was great."

Source: The Intelligencer - March 29, 2005
Update posted on Mar 29, 2005 - 12:09PM

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A Bucks County veterinarian, accused last month of beating horses at three farms in 2002 and 2003, settled a suit last summer in which he had been accused of fatally injuring a horse in 2001 in Philadelphia, court records there show.

M. Teresa Sarmina said in an interview that veterinarian Sean K. Saltsburg, 36, "actually killed" her horse during a pregnancy exam.

Sarmina, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge, filed an animal malpractice suit in 2003 against Saltsburg and veterinarian Dale A. Schilling, who employed him.

After the parties agreed to arbitration, Sarmina was awarded $18,695, a settlement that the vets did not accept. Shortly before another Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge was to hear their appeal of the arbitrator's decision, a settlement for an undisclosed amount was reached last August, according to the records.

In her City Hall office earlier this week, Sarmina held a photo of the horse, galloping across a field in Potter County in the late 1990s, and said: "She was gorgeous."

Angelo L. Scaricamazza Jr., an attorney for Schilling and Saltsburg, wrote in his answer to Sarmina's May 2003 suit that the vets denied "all allegations of negligence, carelessness and recklessness" and at all times "adhered to the standard of care of a veterinarian."

Scaricamazza said Monday that a settlement "is never an admission of wrongdoing."

Keith Williams, Saltsburg's attorney in the Bucks case, said Monday that the settlement was irrelevant to the charges in Bucks County.

"Negligence was involved, that was what was alleged. No intentional acts," Williams said.

At his office in Blue Bell, Schilling had no comment about the settlement on Monday.

Saltsburg is the Buckingham Township veterinarian whom the Bucks County District Attorney's Office charged on Feb. 24 with eight counts of cruelty to animals and two counts of endangering another person.

In the affidavit supporting Saltsburg's arrest, three Bucks horse farm owners accused him of beating their horses in 2002 and 2003, one so severely that the horse was blinded in one eye. A fourth farm owner accused Saltsburg of neglecting Saltsburg's own horses, boarded with that farm owner in 2003.

Sarmina, of Philadelphia, said she boarded Velvet, which she described as a "black bay Arabian," at Monastery Stables in the West Mount Airy section of Fairmount Park.

In another interview last week, Sarmina said Saltsburg had ruptured the horse's rectal column during a pregnancy exam.

The rupture was "just such a gross tear that she died within 24 hours," she said.

Even though the settlement deprived her of a jury trial, Sarmina said, "I felt quite vindicated. I just knew that his care and his response was horrible."

In the 2003 complaint on which the August settlement was based, Sarmina stated that, on May 5, 2001, staff at the New Bolton Center inseminated the Arabian with chilled semen. New Bolton is a large-animal clinic near Kennett Square operated by the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

Sarmina's account that follows is from her complaint in the court records:

On May 24, 2001, Schilling directed Saltsburg "to perform a uterine examination," though Schilling "failed to communicate directly with, or obtain and review any veterinary records from the New Bolton Center."

That May 24 exam at Monastery Stables was also performed "without the prior knowledge or consent" of Sarmina.

Thinking that Velvet had two cysts in her uterus as well as two embryos there, Saltsburg "proceeded to perform a complicated surgery for which he was not qualified or authorized..."

But in proceeding "to pinch off what he believed to be one of two twin embryos," Saltsburg "tore a hole in Velvet's rectum."

Then, "after having determined that Velvet had suffered a rectal tear, defendant Sean K. Saltsburg abandoned Velvet."

At 10 that evening, Schilling arrived at Monastery, where his "examination of Velvet revealed that the horse was in shock" with a temperature of 102, and had suffered a rectal tear. After administering antibiotic and intravenous fluids, Schilling left the horse there overnight.

On May 25, Schilling ordered Velvet sent to New Bolton for emergency care.

"The New Bolton Center... determined that Velvet was suffering from gross fecal contamination of the abdomen and septic peritonitis as a result of the complete tear of the rectum," Sarmina's complaint stated.

On Monday, a New Bolton representative had no comment about that description.

Sarmina agreed that the horse should be destroyed.

Her complaint concluded: "Velvet's autopsy also revealed that she was never pregnant and no embryos were found in her uterus or fallopian tubes."

Saltsburg faces a March 28 preliminary hearing on the charges in Bucks County.

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer - March 16, 2005
Update posted on Mar 21, 2005 - 10:16AM

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References

philly.com - Feb 25, 2005
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Horses beaten - vet chargedDoylestown, PA (US)

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Horses beaten - vet charged
Doylestown, PA (US)