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Case ID: 7008

Classification: Hoarding

Animal: dog (non pit-bull)

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Case #7008 Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Puppy mill - 20 dogs, 8 puppies
Clarksburg, MD (US)

Incident Date: Thursday, Mar 31, 2005
County: Montgomery

Charges: Misdemeanor
Disposition: Convicted

Defendant/Suspect: Maria A. Yordan Torres

Case Updates: 3 update(s) available

A Clarksburg woman faced several animal cruelty charges for allegedly keeping malnourished dogs in filthy conditions, authorities said.

According to Montgomery County police, they first came across Maria A. Yordan Torres back in April, when they answered a call about an abandoned dog and found one that was malnourished. They later hit Torres with a civil citation for animal cruelty.

Animal Services made a surprise check to her home in November 2005�and found some unsanitary conditions, but were assured it was temporary. A month later, investigators returned to find a dead dog in the yard. Its death was blamed on malnutrition and neglect.

When police and Animal Services returned earlier in January 2006, they found 20 adult dogs and eight puppies on Torres' property. Officials said many were in unsanitary conditions and some were malnourished. All are at the county animal shelter and are expected to be put up for adoption at some point.

The report stated that Animal Services officers obtained a search warrant and transported 27 Coton de Tulear dogs and one beagle to the Montgomery County Animal Shelter. Many of the dogs were underfed and some required shaving due to damaged coats. The dogs have been groomed and given medical treatment and are available for adoption at the shelter.

Torres, 52, now faces 32 counts, including inflicting unnecessary suffering or pain on an animal. She was free on $15,000 bond.

Torres is reportedly a Spanish teacher.� She was arrested on Jan 19, 2006.

Case Updates

When police charged Maria Yordan Torres with criminal neglect of the fluffy white Coton de Tulear dogs she bred in her home, many students at Montgomery Blair High School assumed her career as a Spanish teacher was over.

Almost two years after her arrest, Torres is still teaching at the Silver Spring school. And that is something the Blair community has yet to fully accept.

Students, alumni and parents continue to protest the veteran teacher's presence on campus, reasoning that someone capable of harming an animal should not be entrusted with a roomful of youths. Members of the school community say Torres might find herself more welcome at any school other than Blair, a Montgomery County campus with an unusually high percentage of student activists, some of whom recently organized an animal rights club.

"Hurting an animal is really no different than hurting a child," said Mollie Segal, 19, a 2006 Blair graduate who attends the University of Arizona. "My brother goes to that school. My brother takes Spanish. That's not someone I want near my brother."

Andrew Jezic, Torres's attorney, said his client is a lifelong dog lover whose passion led her to breeding. He said the arrest and subsequent misdemeanor conviction came at a particularly dark hour in her life.

"She was deeply, deeply depressed, and this got out of hand, and she was unable to deal with it," he said.

Montgomery school officials say they have no legal right to fire Torres.

Animal abuse falls well outside the small universe of crimes that can get a teacher automatically removed from a classroom. Maryland law forbids the hiring of teachers previously convicted of various crimes involving violence, sex or children. Once hired, teachers can lose their credentials for those crimes and several others, including drug offenses and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Teachers can also lose their license for a crime involving "moral turpitude," but only if the offense bears directly on the individual's fitness to teach.

Torres continues to teach "because the conduct that led to her misdemeanor conviction had no effect on her ability to teach Spanish to high school students," said Kate Harrison, school system spokeswoman.

On Jan. 4, 2006, detectives and animal services officers raided the teacher's Clarksburg home. They found 27 caged Coton de Tulear dogs in various stages of malnourishment and decrepitude with matted coats and padding about in their own filth. Police also seized her pet beagle, Dusty.

Facing 81 counts of animal cruelty, Torres pleaded guilty to five. She served her jail sentence -- reduced on appeal from 90 days to 10 -- on consecutive weekends in January.

Parents and students have repeatedly questioned her teaching presence, first in telephone calls to the principal, then in postings to the Web site of the school newspaper, Silver Chips, and to the e-mail forum of the school PTSA.

This month, two Blair parents raised the question anew in a meeting with Principal Darryl Williams. One was Debbie Segal, mother of Mollie.

"She inflicted pain and suffering and death on something else that is living, and I have a problem with someone like that being around children," she said later. "Not to mention that these kids are making all amounts of fun of her, making barking sounds. I'd be surprised if there's any learning going on in her classroom."

Williams had no comment.

Torres has taught at Blair for two decades and was consistently evaluated as an excellent teacher until her arrest, Jezic said.

Some students disagree with those evaluations. "I still tell stories about her," said Ele Rubenstein, a 2007 graduate and now a freshman at Temple University. Her arrest, he said, "really felt like a validation."

Many students and parents who posted comments on the Web site of the school paper expressed similar sentiments. A few defended her, citing a distinction between actions inside and outside the classroom.

Mary Donohue, a 2007 Blair graduate, said she is divided. "While I feel that Ms. Yordan-Torres's personal life should not dictate her work life, it should also be realized that the two can intertwine, especially when it comes to abuse," she wrote in an e-mail.

But Grace Ellison, a 16-year-old Blair junior who had Torres last year, said she and most current students feel that the teacher has had "more than her three strikes."

Well-publicized cases of teachers abusing animals are rare. In 2003, a Philadelphia teacher was accused of abandoning 16 cats to their fates in an otherwise unoccupied rowhouse, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. In 2004, a teacher in Plant City, Fla., was charged with animal cruelty for killing baby rabbits with a shovel, according to the Tampa Tribune. The Plant City teacher was cleared. Philadelphia school officials would not comment on the cat case. Both women are still teaching.

Source: Washington Post - Nov 26, 2007
Update posted on Nov 26, 2007 - 11:58PM

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Maria Yordan Torres, 53, pleaded guilty to five counts of animal neglect this week after a police investigation into her dog-breeding business.

Torres, a teacher at Montgomery Blair High School, was charged with 32 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty in January after police found dozens of malnourished and filthy Coton de Tulear dogs in her house.

Yordan Torres entered her plea Thursday before Montgomery County District Judge Mary Beth McCormick. Sentencing will be Oct. 5.

Source: Washington Post - July 23, 2006
Update posted on Jul 23, 2006 - 10:38PM

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A Clarksburg woman arrested for animal cruelty last week has lost ownership of 28 dogs, which were removed from her home by animal services officers and county police.
Maria Yordan Torres, 52, was arrested Jan. 18 and charged with 11 counts of inflicting pain on an animal and 21 counts of failing to provide to provide sufficient food, veterinary care, air, space and shelter, among other things. She posted $15,000 bond and was released from the Montgomery County Detention Center.

Torres has been a teacher in the county school system since 1986 and currently teaches Spanish at Montgomery Blair High School.

In an interview at her Dancrest Drive home in the Fountain View neighborhood Monday, Torres said she was a responsible breeder.

��I don�t abuse dogs,� Torres said. ��I have been an animal lover. I see this has been taken out of proportion because one dog was found dead.�

Police said 27 of the dogs removed from her home, some of them puppies, were of the Coton de Tulear breed. One of them was an adult beagle. None of them were licensed in Montgomery County, according to Ashley Owen, a spokeswoman for the county Humane Society.

All of the animals were turned over to the Montgomery County Animal Shelter, which is operated by the Humane Society.

Owen said the Coton de Tulear breed is a rare one that was re-introduced to Europe and America only 20 years ago. She said Torres had been selling the dogs for $2,000 each.

According to charging documents, county animal services inspected Torres� property on Nov. 4, as part of Torres� application for a fancier�s license, a kind of kennel license. The inspector found an overwhelming smell of urine in the basement where the dogs were kept in crates. Many of them, including puppies, were sitting in urine and feces.

On Dec. 28, inspectors returned to the property. No one answered the door, but barking was heard inside the house and in the backyard. A dead Coton de Tulear was found in the yard. A veterinarian determined that ��exposure due to poor body condition and lack of quality hair coat� likely contributed to the dog�s death. It was also determined that the dog had not been eating properly.

On Jan. 4, officers executed a search warrant at the house and removed all the dogs.

��I had the dogs for breeding,� Torres said Monday. ��But they were not all for breeding. These people took all my dogs. They didn�t leave a single dog.�

The Humane Society has placed 18 of the Coton de Tulear dogs in new homes, Owen said. Seven of them � four adults and 3 puppies � are in foster care and in need of good permanent homes.

Two of the dogs have special needs and one is still being held at the shelter, Owen said.

She said that Coton be Tulears are usually lively and boisterous, but the dogs from Torres� home are now shy and timid after being confined to cages their whole lives.

��When they first arrived on January 4th they were dirty,� Owen said. ��Some of them were too terrified to be groomed so we held off for a while. After evaluation they were scared, not potty trained, and they didn�t know what toys were.�

The dogs were examined upon their arrival at the shelter, all of the Coton de Tulears had overgrown toenails and some degree of matting. Many of the dogs were malnourished and had ear infections. One dog had severe dental disease.

Owen called the treatment of the dogs a tragedy. Those interested in adopting the seven dogs still in need of homes are instructed to visit the Human Society Web site at www.mchumane.org for information about contacting the animals� foster families.

The foster families will arrange a visit for the adoptive candidates, who must also fill out an adoption application and undergo a home visit from Humane Society staff.

Because the animals have not been around people, they are still getting used to human contact and families with young children would not be appropriate.

��We are looking for an owner that will be patient and committed to rehab,� Owen said.

Source: The Gazette - Jan 25, 2006
Update posted on Jan 25, 2006 - 12:07PM

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Puppy mill - 20 dogs, 8 puppiesClarksburg, MD (US)

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Puppy mill - 20 dogs, 8 puppies
Clarksburg, MD (US)