Vet charged with animal cruelty
Honey Brook, PA (US)Incident Date: Friday, Jun 30, 2006
County: Chester
Disposition: Acquitted
Person of Interest: Edward Frankel, DVM
Case Updates: 3 update(s) available
The SPCA filed charges against Edward Frankel who worked at Honeybrook Animal Hospital. The organization claims that Frankel hit at least 8 dogs with his fist and hand while performing invasive procedures on the animals without anesthesia.
Frankel says the charges are absolutely false.
He believes the allegations stem from legal action he started against the hospital for violating his contract.
Edward FrankelVeterinarian: "I love animals, they're my life, I do lots of volunteer work with wildlife. Basically they wanted me out of the practice because they didn't want to pay me." The new owners of the animal hospital tell Action News that Frankel was terminated from the practice in May.
Case UpdatesMagisterial District Judge Michael J. Cabry III acquitted a Honey Brook veterinarian of 12 counts of animal cruelty Thursday morning.
Cabry decided the prosecution had failed to prove that Dr. Edward Frankel, 68, of Honey Brook, had hit several dogs using a closed fist with the intent to harm the animals in question in the case.
A sizeable group of Frankel's friends and clients assembled in the courtroom to show their support.
"It very often comes down to the old school versus the new school, and the doctor's proceeding to do the right thing," Cabry said in his verbal decision. "I cannot come to a conclusion without reasonable doubt; therefore, I find the defendant not guilty."
Frankel ran the Honey Brook Animal Hospital for 34 years, prior to selling it to and ultimately being fired by Dr. Lisa Pasquarello earlier this year for alleged animal cruelty. The Chester County SPCA filed animal cruelty charges against him on July 27.
Despite Frankel's legal troubles, he has managed to maintain a loyal clientele who dispute the allegations against him, and more than 100 Honey Brook Animal Hospital patients he has served over the years have followed him to his current Main Line Animal Hospital practice.
Assistant District Attorney Kathleen Wright questioned defense witness Melissa Dietrich, formerly the animal hospital's manager, regarding the treatment of several animals that allegedly were mistreated in Frankel's care. Dietrich worked for Frankel for more than 19 years.
She attempted to impinge upon Dietrich's credibility as a witness by insinuating she had a financial reason to distort her testimony because Frankel has her as a beneficiary. Wright also asked her about the large amount of time she spent alone with Frankel as well as their behavior with each other, but Cabry became visibly irritated.
"You are heading down a road that I don't think you should be heading," Cabry said.
The evidence-gathering process against Frankel began in March 2006 after Samantha Kasinger filed a complaint with the Chester County SPCA after she claimed to have seen Frankel hitting and tugging on the choker collar around a dog named Gracie to the point the animal was having trouble breathing, in February.
Dietrich testified Kasinger came into her office in February, upset about the treatment she said she saw Frankel administering to Gracie, saying she couldn't work for Frankel any longer.
"We never trust the owner's collars, and we use collars similar to the choke collars used in obedience classes," Dietrich said. "We use them for all large dogs between 85 and 135 lbs."
Wright questioned Dietrich's claims that she had never seen Frankel abuse the animals in his care.
"If you spent a fair amount of time in your office, how could you see what was going on in all the treatment rooms at the same time?" Wright asked.
Dietrich responded, saying she frequently spent a lot of time walking around the clinic, and she had always seen Frankel treating the animals humanely during her work with him.
Frankel testified he had a long relationship with Pasquerello, dating from her childhood.
He later followed the progress of her career and later agreed to sell her the practice in 2005 after a prior verbal offer to sell the practice to another veterinarian collapsed.
He said Pasquerello began working for him in July 2005. The two negotiated a contract whereby she would pay Frankel $700,000 over time for the practice, that she would pay rent to Frankel's wife and that he would remain under contract as an employee for 10 years with a $100,000 annual salary. A non-competition clause prevented Frankel from practicing veterinary medicine within 20 miles of the Honey Brook Animal Hospital, which Frankel said he complied with.
Frankel's attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, hinged the defense around what he and his client saw as Pasquarello's alleged motive to support the animal cruelty charges in an effort to get out of her contractual obligations.
Bergstrom said in order for his client to be found guilty under the law, he would need to be found guilty of wantonly or cruelly treating the animals in his care.
"It is a tragedy that after 43 years, Dr. Frankel finds himself sitting here in this courtroom charged with abusing animals," he said. "There are plenty of doubts in this case, and one thing is, Dr. Frankel has a 43-year history of treating animals humanely, and 34 years here in Honey Brook without a blemished reputation and with an impeccable reputation."
He questioned why Pasquarello would have agreed to purchase the Honey Brook Animal Hospital from Frankel and keep him employed with a $100,000 annual salary if she considered him abusive to the animals in his care.
During the hearing, the prosecution and defense sparred back and forth between wanting to confine testimony to the six or seven dogs in question under the complaint and seeking to make Frankel's overall 43-year record the issue.
Frankel said he finds it peculiar that all of the evidence or testimony against him dates from the beginning of Pasquarello's tenure, and there hadn't been any prior complaints against him.
Wright rebutted Bergstrom's statement, saying Kasinger's decision to file a complaint with the Chester County SPCA had nothing to do with Pasquarello, and Pasquerello's practice had already been significantly harmed by the bad publicity.
"This case is not about how Dr. Pasquerello has been crucified in the media, and I am not sure her practice will survive with all of the things the defendant's supporters have said, and if it does, it will be a miracle," Wright said.
In spite of the acquittal, Frankel is unsatisfied.
"I am not relieved," Frankel said after the hearing. "This whole thing is a travesty."
Chester County SPCA spokesman Chuck McDevitt said the verdict disappoints him, but his organization had done everything it could to conduct a fair, thorough investigation. | Source: Daily Local - Nov 17, 2006
Update posted on Nov 18, 2006 - 1:19PM |
The former employer of the veterinarian charged with animal cruelty by the Chester County SPCA said on Thursday she warned the man about his alleged abusive techniques several times before his termination.
"I said, 'Ed, you can't keep doing this, especially in front of the staff,'" Lisa Pasquarello, owner of the Honey Brook Animal Hospital, testified during a hearing for Edward Frankel on Thursday. "He said, 'I will handle the dogs any way I feel like.'"
Frankel, 68, of Honey Brook, was charged with 12 counts of animal cruelty by the Chester County SPCA on July 27. Frankel has 43 years of veterinary experience, including 34 in Honey Brook.
The animal organization said several of Frankel's former employees reported that Frankel, on several occasions from July of last year to February of this year, punched dogs he was treating in the head.
Frankel sold the Honey Brook Animal Hospital in December of last year, but he remained a veterinarian at the clinic. Pasquarello said she fired Frankel in March of this year for continued "abuse of animals and employees."
"We were in complete turmoil," she said. "It was a constant battle."
During almost four hours of testimony on Thursday afternoon, several of Frankel's former co-workers, and his former employer Pasquarello, provided detailed accounts of Frankel's alleged animal abuses.
Frankel, who wore a gray shirt, a red tie and khakis, didn't get his chance to take the stand on Thursday. After the prosecution rested late Thursday afternoon, Magisterial District Judge Michael J. Cabry III continued the hearing to Nov. 16 at 9:30 a.m.
After the hearing was continued, Frankel said he "absolutely" looked forward to testifying next Thursday.
"In my opinion, they've magnified a whole bunch of stuff," Frankel said outside the courtroom. "I'm going to tap a dog on the chin occasionally, but I've never intentionally hurt any dogs."
About 30 to 40 of Frankel's supporters accompanied the veterinarian to court on Thursday. While only a few could fit into the small courtroom, several stood outside the court for most of Thursday afternoon. Each supporter wore a tag that read, "I support Dr. Frankel!"
"I've never had an owner complain about anything," Frankel said. On Thursday, in detail, several Honey Brook Animal Hospital employees gave their accounts of Frankel's alleged abuses.
Rachael Litwin, the clinic's head veterinarian technician, said she worked with Frankel "all day, every day" from July of last year to February of this year.
Litwin provided details of several alleged incidents, including one that occurred in October of last year while Frankel and Litwin were treating a German shepherd that needed to have a growth removed from its neck.
Litwin said Frankel wanted to get the dog's attention so he could treat the growth. She said Frankel attempted to punch the dog, missed and struck Litwin's collarbone.
"He apologized, and then he hit the dog," she said. "He hit me in my collarbone ... really, really hard."
Michael Taylor, a former veterinary technician at Honey Brook Animal Hospital, said he witnessed Frankel hit a dog last September that was being treated for a broken leg.
"He would hit the dog upside the back of the head," Taylor said. "He said, 'No, that didn't hurt,' and he kept doing it. It wasn't pleasant.
"He hit him hard enough to where if he hit me, I'd have a real big problem with it."
Samantha Kasinger, another veterinary technician at Honey Brook Animal Hospital, said she also saw Frankel smack a dog, which he had on a leash, in the head several times in February.
"I thought he was going to strangle her," Kasinger said, fighting back tears. "He proceeded to strike her around the head and neck area ... It was horrifying."
Frankel's lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, made several points in Frankel's defense that all of the dogs involved in the alleged incidents were large dogs and were brought back to Honey Brook Animal Hospital for treatment following the alleged incidents.
Bergstrom also said that Frankel has many supporters who have known the veterinarian for many years and would testify that Frankel has never abused animals.
Pasquarello, who said she has known Frankel since she was young and has worked at Honey Brook Animal Hospital since June of last year, said she doesn't want Frankel to continue abusing animals. Frankel currently works at the Main Line Veterinarian Hospital in Frazer.
"I beat myself up for not standing up sooner," she said. "I have nothing to gain from this, but I'm not going to watch these animals be treated like this." | Source: Daily Local News - Nov 10, 2006
Update posted on Nov 10, 2006 - 7:47AM |
A Chester county veterinarian accused of hurting animals is proclaiming his innocence.
Doctor Edward Frankel claims 12 charges of animal abuse filed with the SPCA were the result of a nasty business dispute with his former boss.
He says he never got too rough with dogs and never did invasive procedures without anesthesia, as the complaints allege:
"You get big unruly animals. You get animals which can bite and hurt you. I'm going to use a lead rope. I may jerk on the collar a little bit. I may give some commands like 'sit' and 'stay.' I'm going to use the least amount of restraint I can to do the job, not only to protect the animal but to protect the technician."
He says many loyal clients continue to entrust him with their dogs at his new practice. He says he'll fight the allegations to save his reputation:
"I pick up worms on the driveway and move them on to the dirt. I fish frogs and toads out of the swimming pool and put them in my pond. That's what my life is." | Source: KYW- July 30, 2006
Update posted on Jul 31, 2006 - 10:39AM |
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