Not Starving Horses is a "High Level of Burden"?

Animal protection won a kind of mixed victory this week, as New York horse breeder Ernie Paragallo was found guilty on 33 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty. Paragallo, who has been involved with thousands of racing horses during his career, was arrested last April following a raid on his upstate New York farm. Investigators found 177 malnourished horses. While many of the animals seized were adopted out, a few had to be euthanized.

Paragallo's defense was, to say the least, unique. You see, he didn't know a thing about it. At least, that's what he would have liked the court to believe. It's a tough story to swallow, given the high financial stakes involved in breeding racing horses. One would presume that, with so much potential money on the line, the owner/breeder of the horses in question might, you know, bother to make sure that his very valuable livestock wasn't starving to death.

More ludicrous than Paragallo's defense were the post-trial comments by his lawyer, Michael Howard. According to the AP, Howard said, "This requires a horse owner to take on a very high level of burden." I'm not a horse racing expert, nor am I a lawyer, but I'd suggest to Mr. Howard that if keeping animals fed is such an onerous burden, his client might want to look into a new career path.

Paragallo's mouthpiece also called the verdict "disappointing." I feel the same way about the potential sentence his client faces.

As I said, it's a bit of a mixed victory, and a case where the potential punishment doesn't exactly fit the crime. Since the 33 convictions Paragallo racked up are all misdemeanors, he faces a maximum $33,000 fine and up to two years in prison.

Given that Paragallo is, by all accounts, a fairly successful breeder, I'll go out on a limb and say that thirty-three grand is not exactly a crippling financial price to pay, especially when you consider that it's in exchange for willfully starving 177 horses. And unfortunately, in far too many cases like this, courts don't tend to impose much, if any, prison time.

It's too bad, really. A couple of years in the hoosegow might teach Paragallo a lesson in a way that a $33,000 fine probably won't. Of course, even if he did spend a year or two in the slammer, he'd still be getting three square meals a day, unlike his victims. Let's hope that, if imprisoned, keeping Mr. Paragallo healthy doesn't impose an undue burden on the State of New York.

Photo credit: certified su