70 animal cruelty charges filed against egg farm
Mt Joy, PA (US)Incident Date: Wednesday, Nov 30, 2005
County: Lancaster
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged:
» H Glenn Esbenshade
» Jay Musser
Case Updates: 2 update(s) available
On January 9, 2006, the owner of Esbenshade Farms, Pennsylvania's third-largest egg producer, and the manager of Esbenshade Farms-North in Mt. Joy, were each charged with 35 counts of criminal animal cruelty. The charges stem from an undercover video taken by an investigator affiliated with an animal advocacy organization. While working at Esbenshade Farms-North from November 30 to December 9, 2005, the investigator documented appalling conditions for hundreds of thousands of hens including:
-- birds overcrowded in wire battery cages so small that they cannot
spread their wings;
-- hens left to suffer from untreated illnesses or injuries;
-- birds with their wings, legs, or feet entangled in the wires of cages,
unable to access food or water;
-- injured or dying birds removed from their cages and left in the aisles
without access to food or water;
-- birds impaled on the wires of the cages with many found already dead as
a result of the painful immobilization; and
-- hens living in cages amongst decomposing bodies of other birds.
After reviewing the evidence, Johnna Seeton, a Pennsylvania-certified humane officer, filed the criminal charges in the Magisterial District Court in Lancaster County. Lawyers for The Humane Society of the United States are providing legal assistance with the case.
Esbenshade Farms owns and operates three egg factory farms in Pennsylvania, in which an estimated 2.25 million laying hens are confined in wire battery cages. Despite being one of the nation's top egg producers, Esbenshade Farms does not participate in the United Egg Producers' (UEP's) voluntary certification program, which sets forth the absolute barest of minimum guidelines for laying hen husbandry. More than 80 percent of the egg industry participates in the UEP's program.
Case UpdatesThe owner of one of the state's largest egg farms was back in court Thursday facing animal-cruelty charges in a case that left off nearly six months ago.
Charged with 35 counts each of animal cruelty are Esbenshade Farms' chief executive H. Glenn Esbenshade and farm manager Jay Musser.
Each violation carries a potential fine of $50 to $750 and up to 90 daysin prison.
The case stems from a videotape reportedly made in December 2005 by undercover animal-rights activist John Brothers, who took a job maintaining chicken houses at the Mount Joy farm where an estimated 600,000 laying hens are kept.
Brothers' videotape reportedly shows dead hens impaled on wire cages, heaps of dead birds, decomposed birds left in crowded cages with live
hens and other inhumane conditions.
On Thursday at District Justice Jayne F. Duncan's Elizabethtown court, defense attorneys tried to poke holes in the case brought by HumaneSociety police officer Johnna L. Seeton, who viewed the videotape in December 2005 after it was brought to her attention by the Washington, D.C.-based animal-rights advocacy group Compassion Over Killing.
Seeton testified the videotape shows dead birds left in cages with live hens so long the carcasses had disintegrated to nothing but feathers and bones.
She said others were impaled on or trapped by cage wires that kept them out of reach of food and water.
Testimony continues at 9 a.m. today. | Source: Staff Intelligencer Journal - Mar 2, 2007
Update posted on May 13, 2007 - 10:34PM |
A district judge in Elizabethtown ruled April 18, 2006 that videotaped evidence of alleged animal cruelty at a county farm can be part of an upcoming trial. Defense attorneys for Esbenshade Farms chief executive H. Glenn Esbenshade and farm manager Jay Musser tried to persuade District Justice Jayne F. Duncan not to allow the footage, which reportedly shows dead hens impaled on wire, heaps of dead birds and inhumane conditions at the Mount Joy operation, one of the state's largest egg-production farms.
Esbenshade and Musser each face 35 counts each of animal cruelty, which carry potential fines of $50 to $750 and up to 90 days in jail per violation. Attorneys for the defense argued unsuccessfully that an undercover animal-rights activist who shot the footage in December may have violated constitutional search-and-seizure rules by videotaping the premises without permission after lying on an employment application to get a job at the farm.
In December 2005, John Brothers showed his videotape to Humane Society police Officer Johnna L. Seeton, who testified to filing the cruelty charges in January based on its content. But she said it was her own decision to charge the farm operators, who oversee an estimated 600,000 laying hens.
Seeton is certified to initiate criminal proceedings in several Pennsylvania counties, including Lancaster. She denied defense lawyers' suggestion that she worked in conjunction with the Washington, D.C.-based animal rights advocacy group Compassion Over Killing to investigate and file the citations against Esbenshade and Musser. Brothers testified he is affiliated with COK, saying he worked for the group before and after his employment at Esbenshade Farms but that he sought employment at Esbenshade and videotaped the conditions there on his own. He said he omitted his connection with COK from his employment history on the Esbenshade job application because he wouldn't be hired "... for the same reason the mob wouldn't hire a police officer trying to infiltrate and document conditions."
Defense attorney Chris Patterson hammered at Brothers' credibility while trying to establish a link between COK and Seeton. Asking Brothers if he provided Seeton with still photographs of the farm, Patterson said, "Can't you remember? Or are you just a habitual liar and you can't remember because you lie all the time?" Because the district attorney's office does not handle animal cruelty cases, private attorney Christopher P. Lyden is prosecuting on Seeton's behalf.
"The issue today was whether or not the investigation was in any way conducted by the state so that the constitution would be implicated, and it wasn't," Lyden said. Brothers worked at Esbenshade Farms from Nov. 30 to Dec. 9 of 2005. He reportedly documented birds being overcrowded in cages to small to allow them to spread their wings, hens living in cages with decomposing carcasses and birds entangled in the wire cages and suffering from illness and injury. According to its Web site, Compassion Over Killing focuses on agriculture industries and advocates a vegetarian diet as a way to "build a kinder world for all of us, both human and nonhuman."
But defense attorney Michael T. Winters said the animal cruelty statute cannot be enforced against the kind of "normal agricultural operation" his clients operate. "It's what's the legal standard versus what's somebody else's standards," Winters said. "Other people and other special-interest groups may have other standards they believe should be applied, but we're dealing with the legal standard here." Duncan did not set a date for the trial's continuation. | Source: Lancaster Online - April 19, 2006
Update posted on Apr 30, 2006 - 1:16AM |
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