Pleads guilty to 50 criminal counts

By TRAVIS NEFF

travisn@pdclarion.com

PRINCETON-After more than two years of legal wrangling, a former Owensville man pleaded guilty Thursday to abusing dozens of horses on a farm he once operated.

Richard M. Stallings, 66, now of Evansville, pleaded guilty to 50 misdemeanor counts of mistreating horses on a farm south of Johnson in Gibson County.

During Thursday's sentencing hearing, Superior Court Judge Earl Penrod sentenced Stallings to one year of probation, with 120 days to be served on electronically-monitored home detention. As another condition of the plea, Stallings was ordered to have no contact with any animals during his probation and may not own or care for any animal.

Stallings pleaded guilty to each of the counts, which were read individually by Penrod.

Stallings originally faced eight felony counts of cruelty to animals and 42 B misdemeanor counts of neglect of a vertebrate animal. In the plea agreement, the eight felony charges of animal cruelty were reduced to class A misdemeanors.

As Penrod read each count of the cruelty charges, Stallings answered "yes sir" each time he was asked if he was pleading guilty to the torturing of horses. The convicted animal abuser also admitted to the neglect charges.

The horses in each count were identified by a description of each animal and a corresponding evidence number for each charge.

During the hearing, Penrod described the horses in the affidavit for probable cause, naming the animals with descriptions such as "a bay colored filly," "a palomino foal," "a blind, brown mare," and "a black stallion."

Chief Deputy Prosecutor Sharon Werne presented the case for the state. She said Stallings kept the horses in squalid conditions, that several of the horses were malnourished and that some of the horses were in such physical distress that they had to be euthanized.

Horses were seized on Sept. 7 and 14, 2006 and on May 26, 2007. Gibson County Animal Services and the Gibson County Sheriff's Dept. served search warrants on Stallings' farm and found animals malnourished, living in mounds of manure and urine, with injuries sustained from bumping up against jagged metal. Some were unable to stand due to the horrendous conditions of their hooves, the prosecutor told the court.

Werne said investigators referred to one of the horses at the farm as "the gangrene horse."

Defense attorney Michael Cochren cited Stallings' lack of a criminal record and his willingness to turn over horses he owned to investigators and care-giving volunteers as mitigating factors in the case.

Penrod said he was at first leery of the plea agreement as it may have been perceived as being too lenient. The judge held up a file folder of letters he received from people interested in the case and said he understood the public discussion surrounding the case, which - if it had gone to trial - was scheduled to last up to three weeks.

Penrod said he would accept the plea deal and hoped the case would serve as a deterrent to animal abuse and neglect.

After the hearing, Prosecutor Rob Krieg said he was contacted by concerned individuals who requested that the plea agreement demand that Stallings be ordered to never own any animals - especially horses - again. Krieg said he would have liked to add such a condition to the deal, but state law prevented him from doing so. "I would have if I could have, but I just don't have the authority," he said.

Krieg said it may have been a difficult task to prove that the Stallings' actions rose to the level of "torture" as defined by law. The prosecutor said he was satisfied with the guilty plea and his office met the goal of holding Stallings accountable for his actions when he confessed to all 50 counts of mistreating horses.

The wording of laws concerning animal cruelty have surrounded the case since it first broke on Jan. 20, 2006.

Gibson County Animal Services Executive Director Brenda Foley, who read a statement on behalf of the prosecution during the hearing, said she hoped the Stallings case would lead lawmakers to change laws to make it easier to prosecute animal abusers.

"The important thing is that we maintain momentum and use this as a catalyst to address the legislature and change animal laws," she said following the hearing.

During her testimony, Foley described animal cruelty as a root of domestic violence, abuse and neglect in society. She said Stallings had been given several opportunities to clean up the conditions at the farm. Foley told the judge Stallings displayed "depraved indifference" to the condition of the horses at the farm.

Also making a statement for the state was Anthony Caldwell, the president of Indiana Horse Rescue. The non-profit organization has since taken possession of the former Stallings farm and turned it into a sanctuary for abused and neglected horses.

Caldwell described Stallings' actions as immoral, but said he was pleased the circumstances have led to state-wide attention of animal abuse.

"My emotional response is that Mr. Stallings should be in jail for a long time," Caldwell said following the hearing.

But Caldwell said he was glad the case has drawn attention to the need to fight for changes in the laws for people like Stallings.

"What we have done here is taken on a huge horse operation and turned it from something terrible into something good," said Caldwell.