Man pleads guilty after horses sold to slaughterhouse
A southern Alberta man who sold a woman’s two horses for slaughter without her knowledge has been fined, after pleading guilty to a lesser charge.
Wayne Jubb, who is 78, was charged last year with trafficking stolen property and uttering forged documents.
He pleaded guilty in Lethbridge provincial court to one count of mischief by destroying or damaging property.
The other charges were stayed. Kathy O’reilly, the owner of the two horses, said she “would have been happy with some jail time” for Jubb.
“It’s just really sad,” she said. O’reilly has been advocating for mandatory holds for horses that are brought to slaughterhouses, “so if they happen to be stolen, that people have time to find them and get them back.”
So far, she said the response to her efforts has been “a lot of deaf ears out there and a lot of form letters received from various departments of government and ministers’ offices.”
Jubb was fined $750 and ordered to pay $8,000 in restitution based on a joint submission by the Crown and defence.
Jubb never cashed the $799 cheque he received for selling the two horses, Cocoa and Cinderella.
The judge told the court that Jubb had a duty to care for the horses — not to have them killed.
Three victim impact statements were entered in court, including the owner’s.
“The death of my horses has had a severe impact on me,” she wrote. “I can’t shake the sadness I feel.”
According to an agreed statement of facts, the horses had been boarding at Jubb’s ex-wife’s property for five years along with her own horses.
Over time, the business ran into financial difficulty and she died while bankruptcy proceedings were underway. All the horses on the property had to be moved by April 28, 2018.
On April 26, 2018, Jubb took the two horses to an auction house where they were bid on and sold for slaughter. He signed documents indicating they were his animals, which was not the case.
When the owner showed up at the farm two days later to move her horses, they were gone, and she called RCMP.
Outside court, Jubb declined to comment on his conviction.
The Canadian Press
— With files from Yolande Cole, Postmedia