Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Festival pilot is target of filing
A Bruno woman has filed a second complaint this month against the “Phantom Pilot” of the Yellville Turkey Trot festival.
Rose Hilliard said she went to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office on Monday to file an animal-cruelty complaint about live turkeys being tossed from an airplane as it flew near the festival Saturday.
Hilliard filed a similar complaint Oct. 2, but that one apparently involved a different Phantom Pilot because a different plane dropped a dozen turkeys over Crooked Creek during last year’s Turkey Trot festival.
The 1966 Piper PA-28-140 that flew by the festival Saturday and dropped several turkeys is registered to Aldino Raimondi of Yellville, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.
Raimondi didn’t return messages left for him Wednesday.
Hilliard is alleging animal cruelty and abandonment under Arkansas Code 5-62-103. It’s usually a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. Upon a fourth conviction within five years, cruelty to animals becomes a felony in Arkansas, and the guilty party is ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
On Oct. 10, Marion County Sheriff Clinton Evans said the one-year statute of limitation expired regarding the turkeys that were dropped at the festival Oct. 7-8, 2016, but he forwarded an investigative report to Deputy Prosecutor Kenford Carter anyway. Evans noted he wasn’t sheriff last year.
Neither Evans nor Carter returned messages left for them Wednesday.
Hilliard said she filed her initial complaint Oct. 2, which was before the statute of limitation expired, and a similar complaint from a representative of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was delivered to the sheriff’s office in July.
Under Arkansas Code 5-1109, the statute of limitation hinges on the amount of time between the crime and when a prosecution commences.
The FAA will look into Saturday’s turkey drop, said Lynn Lunsford, a spokesman for the agency.
About 4,000 people attended the 72nd annual Turkey Trot festival Saturday.