The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Jury finds Caroline’s Kids guilty
All four defendants convicted on all 24 animal cruelty counts
Four animal rescue employees meant well but were ultimately overwhelmed by the sheer number of cats they would take in, said Special Prosecutor J. Jeffrey Holland while addressing the jury during the state’s closing argument.
The owners of Caroline’s Kids Pet Rescue, a private Concord Township no-kill cat animal shelter, who went on trial Aug. 2 in Painesville Municipal Court on second degree misdemeanor animal cruelty charges have been found guilty, along with two other employees.
Eight jurors deliberated for about 3 hours before returning
with the verdict on Aug. 5.
Owners Tom and Judie Brown, 78 and 70, respectively, of Mayfield Heights, and workers Ellen Distler, 65, of Chagrin Falls, and Virginia Wolford-Lee, 65, of Mentor, were all convicted on all 24 counts. None have prior criminal convictions.
Each count is punishable by up to 90 days in jail and/ or a $750 fine. Sentencing will take place within 30 days before Visiting Judge David L. Fuhry.
On Nov. 28, Lake Humane Society seized 161 cats — four of them deceased — from the shelter after receiving a complaint about the conditions of multiple animals. One hundred animals were allowed to remain after the raid.
“You have an extremely difficult task here today and there is nobody, nobody, who takes joy in these proceedings,” said Holland. “I think that that was clear. Obviously, the defendants take no joy in this. The supporters of Caroline’s Kids take no joy in this. The (Lake) Humane Society takes no joy in this. They didn’t want this burden and I don’t think there was any indication that they were looking forward to receiving 150-plus cats that were
in difficult conditions.
“It’s also a difficult task, because you have to decide whether or not people who had noble intentions, and who appear to be nice people, might have violated a legal duty. Because you know it’s going to break their hearts. But that’s why we have juries who can review
the law in an appropriate fashion. This isn’t about castigating these individuals. I think what started out as a noble enterprise at some point turned.”
Holland acknowledged that the defendants’ desire to “give care” is how everything transpired.
“It was always about the animals,” he said, “but what turned? At some point, they became blinded by pride. These individuals have given so much to open up Caroline’s Kids — they’ve given their time, they’ve given their money, but most of all, they’ve given their sense of self. They believe that they are heroes. And when you believe that you’re a hero, and this is who you are, it’s really hard to say, ‘I’ve made mistakes….I have not made them as happy as they want to be.’ They believed there was nowhere better for these cats to be.
“None of the cats received palliative care, the hallmark of a ‘hospice.’ They also had a reluctance to euthanize, but it’s better than suffering. Many of the cats taken by the Humane Society are now success stories. The law says that any keeper or caretaker of a companion animal has a legal duty to not ‘torture’ the animal. ‘Torture’ is an archaic word, but cruelty, torture and torment are defined by the Ohio Revised Code as any act, condition or neglect by which unnecessary or unjustifiable pain or suffering is caused, permitted or allowed to continue where there is a reasonable remedy or relief. So this is not about wanting to hurt animals. It’s not even about recklessness. It’s about neglect, a substantial lapse of due care, as defined by the court.”
Holland went on to entreat the jury to find the defendants guilty, and “to abide by the court’s wisdom.”
In his closing, defense attorney Gregory Sasse argued that the defendants were acting out of care, concern and love, not pride or ego.
“The tactics used here were underhanded,” he said. “These animals were taken to the vet multiple times. How is that neglect? We’ve had a lot of testimony about these miraculous success stories. Lake Humane’s records are a mess. They lie, repeatedly. Animals are kept in a hellhole annex with cross-contamination, stacked in towers.
“The defendants chose to take these cats in out of love. A reasonable remedy would have been to dump them in the woods for them to starve and die on their own. This is a frame, compounded questions and tricks, lawyers’ tricks. The prosecution’s witnesses are all paid employees of Lake Humane (Society). All of our witnesses, except for the two workers, are not.”
Sasse intimated many of the photos of the cats were backdated, and that many of the cats were not suffering from any ailment whatsoever.
“It’s easy to frame a facility like Caroline’s Kids, whose mission is to take in very sick and dying cats,” he said. “All you have to do is exaggerate the symptoms, manufacture evidence, of the chronically ill and make it look like terrible care. If they were taking terrible care of these animals, why are people sending them cats from all over the country after watching them on their videos? Why are cat lovers stopping by to check with them?
“These neutral and noble people spend lots of their time helping cats. These are good, decent people. It should not be a crime to love, it should not be a crime to be told to make changes, and then you make them and then, ‘Gotcha!’ This was all set up in advance. There’s something else going on here. Think about all the lies you were presented with. Is it a crime to rescue sick and dying cats?”
Multiple calls to Sasse after the verdict was revealed were not returned.
Currently, the Browns have a $5 million civil suit against the Lake Humane Society pending in federal court.
“You have an extremely difficult task here today and there is nobody, nobody, who takes joy in these proceedings. I think that that was clear. Obviously, the defendants take no joy in this. The supporters of Caroline’s Kids take no joy in this. The (Lake) Humane Society takes no joy in this.” — Special Prosecutor J. Jeffrey Holland