Couple cited in death of animals
The Denver Post
Prosecutors have filed 72 animal cruelty charges against a Thornton couple after authorities discovered 50 dead animals and 2,000 others including hedgehogs, snakes and mice in a shed and basement reeking of urine and feces.
The grisly discovery was made the same day the third of three family members was sentenced on animal cruelty charges for abuses by members of the Kubic family at their pet stores and an unauthorized rodent factory.
Kenneth Mark Kubic, 63, and Lynn Denise Kubic, 56, the former owners of two Jurassic Pets stores, were arrested on 36 felony charges each in July, but their charges had been sealed until recently, according to Adams County District Court records.
“Just months after being convicted of cruelty to animals, Kenneth and Lynn Kubic were causing small animals to suffer and die in hellish conditions in their basement and shed,” Daphna Nachminovitch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said in a news release Wednesday. “These are serial animal abusers who must be barred from ever harboring an animal again.”
Two flooded bins held dead mice and maggots, and an additional mouse bin was filling with water. Many of the surviving mice were kept in filthy, severely crowded bins, PETA officials report.
The Kubics were operating “a rodent factory” without a license when they were first charged with a slew of animal cruelty charges. A judge ordered them to stop and barred them from operating without a license.
In May 2016, Kenneth Kubic was convicted of 18 counts of cruelty to animals following a two-day trial in Adams County.
Witnesses testified that kittens, hedgehogs, reptiles and rodents were confined in unsanitary conditions without food, water and veterinary care at the Thornton pet stores. Some of the animals died and others had to be euthanized because of their conditions after the pet store was raided.
The Kubics’ son, Brian Kubic, pleaded guilty to one count of cruelty to animals and had 37 others dismissed. He was sentenced to a year of probation in June 2016 and ordered to have no contact with animals. His mother, Lynn Kubic, who had entered a guilty plea to one misdemeanor count of animal cruelty while prosecutors dismissed the other 37, was sentenced on Aug. 31, 2016, to a year of probation and ordered to have no contact with animals.