JG-TC.com > News > Rose sentenced for horse neglect

TODAY'S HEADLINES

SPECIAL SECTION

ONLINE POLL

ONLINE EXTRAS

Shop Smart, Shop Local

SITE TOOLS

OTHER LINKS

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Friday, January 9, 2009 10:17 PM CST
Rose sentenced for horse neglect
Charleston man gets $20,000 in fines, 10-day jail sentence

By DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer
dfopay@jg-tc.com

CHARLESTON — Ernest C. Rose lost ownership of the horses he was convicted of starving and neglecting at his Charleston farm last year, and was ordered to pay more than $20,000 in fines and reimbursement for the care of the horses.

Circuit Judge Mitchell Shick on Friday said he saw a “disturbing pattern” with Rose, including evidence that he also neglected horses about 10 years ago, then “did nothing to intervene.” Shick had Rose taken into custody immediately after Friday’s hearing to begin serving a 10-day jail sentence, and more jail time could be possible under the terms of the two-year probation sentence he received.

In addition, Shick ordered Rose not to own or possess any type of animal while on probation.

“You have yet to accept responsibility,” the judge told Rose, who, as he did at his trial, blamed unreliable hired help for the deteriorating conditions Coles County authorities found at his farm at 1050 W. Coolidge Ave. in August and September of last year.

Shick convicted Rose at a bench trial in September of nearly 200 counts of misdemeanor offenses, charges of cruelty to animals, violations of owner’s duties and improper disposal of dead animals.

Evidence at the trial indicated that a neighbor notified the county animal shelter of a foul odor coming from Rose’s property, and investigators then found several dead horses and numerous others that were starving, stuck in mud, living in overcrowded conditions or otherwise neglected.

On Friday, Shick ordered about a quarter of the reimbursement to the county for the horse’s care that Assistant State’s Attorney Eric Neumann. The judge said he was ordering to Rose to pay about $14,000 for the 14 horses Rose agreed to have removed from his property when the conditions were first discovered.

However, Shick also noted that he granted a defense pretrial motion and declared the seizure of the additional horses illegal, as they were taken later when conditions allegedly worsened at the farm again. Shick said county officials didn’t have the authority to go to the farm at that time because Rose withdrew his permission by then.

All of the 72 horses were removed and were placed in foster care, but most were taken in September 2007, and Shick said the law didn’t allow him to order Rose to pay for the county’s care of those horses. Shick’s order that Rose forfeit the horses also included the six foals that have been born to mares since their removal from the farm.

Defense attorney Michael Tague said Rose plans to appeal the conviction. Shick denied Tague’s request that Rose not have to serve the jail time immediately, pending the appeal or at least until he could arrange his personal affairs.

After the hearing, Tague said he didn’t know yet if Rose would pay the fines and reimbursement within the time limits Shick imposed, the reimbursement within three months and the fines within six months.

Rose had no comment after the hearing, but during a statement to Shick said, as he did at his trial, that people he hired to care for the horses proved undependable. He also said he’s changed the schedule of his medical practice, which he claimed kept him away from the farm, and added that he’s made improvements there.

“I’ve done everything I can to rectify the situation,” Rose said. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep it from happening again.”

However, Shick classified Rose’s lack of response to his employees requests for help as “dismissive at best,” and when a horse died as a result, that was “callous disregard” of the poor conditions.

If Rose does pay the fines, they would go to the county’s general budget fund and the County Board would then decide how to use the money. Board member Marc Weber attended the hearing Friday and said he hopes the board would appropriate the fines to the animal shelter; Weber is chairman of the board’s Health and Safety Committee, which oversees the shelter.

Other probation terms Shick ordered included counseling and 500 hours of public service work, and he said he wanted the probation department to try to find an organization that works to prevent animal abuse for Rose to do his public service. He ordered a total of six months in jail, but Rose would have to serve more than the 10 days only because of a violation of another term of his sentence.

Tague argued that a 1999 complaint of mistreated of horses that the Illinois Department of Agriculture investigated never led to any charges, so “this isn’t a repeat situation.” He said Rose’s mistake was in how he took responsibility and supervised the farm.

“There’s no evidence he won’t get it when you tell him,” Tague said to Shick. “He will be motivated to run a tip-top operation.”

Neumann said the 1999 investigation found neglect and the lack of the state’s followup didn’t change that. He also noted that after the conditions at the farm were discovered last year, Rose made improvements but conditions again deteriorated, and all that showed a history of mistreatment.

Rose has a lawsuit pending in federal court asking the county for the return of the horses, and a hearing in that case is scheduled Jan. 16.

Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 238-6858.

Add your comments

*Member ID:
*Password:
Remember login? (requires cookies)
	Forgot Your Password?

Not already registered?
Then click Here.

Comment policy:

JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.

In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.

We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.

No comment may contain:

* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.

If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.

das wrote on Jan 9, 2009 11:34 PM:

" 10 days? That's it? Wow. Good job. "

MamaC wrote on Jan 10, 2009 8:11 AM:

" This case is a disaster. Neglect that many animals and get ten days..five at best..Get real. I am not a PETA spokesperson, or some freak who thinks you shouldnt wear leather or furs..my dogs live outside in dog houses, not in my house like humans, BUT I do see the ball was dropped on this one. If you do some research on animal cruelty you will find that people who start out hoarding (yup, that's what it is) and then neglect of this caliber, they have other things going on in their lives that indicate abuse/neglect in other areas of their life. I think the judge probably did what he could legally under the circumstances, but this should be a wakeup call to tweak the laws and punishments on something of this caliber. "

medic57 wrote on Jan 10, 2009 8:17 AM:

" WOW, talk about getting off lucky, I have seen people get more than that for hitting a drunk in a bar. "

gringa wrote on Jan 10, 2009 8:38 AM:

" Not trying to play devil's advocate here, or to be insensitive to humane treatment of animals, but horses are *property* in the eyes of the law, nothing else.

I can see where the court could legitimately and repeatedly order Rose to treat the horses with care, and I can see the court sending him to jail if he disobeys that order. And I can see the punishments handed out becoming stiffer if Rose continues to mistreat his animals.

The court has the power to punish Rose's mistreatment of the horses but, technically, I'm not sure the court has the power to take the man's property from him. Rose will probably win his federal lawsuit for the return of his property. It's not a crime for Rose to own horses; it's a crime for him to mistreat them. "

I Care wrote on Jan 10, 2009 9:13 AM:

" 10 days is to much he would die by then. I think he should have got 3 days, in a mud hole with NO food or water. What a joke this guy is. I BET that he still has animals and will continue to have them. This is the kinda guy PETA should be after NOT the hunters, then everyone would be behind PETA. But they are as stupid as Rose is. "

longtimegone wrote on Jan 10, 2009 9:55 AM:

" slapped on the finger with a feather go ye forth and sin some more. "

Rotty wrote on Jan 10, 2009 10:25 AM:

" This guy should have locked up in a barn with a dozen undersexed bulls. "

Mike P wrote on Jan 10, 2009 10:44 AM:

" Illinois has felony statutes on the books, and this SA chose to solely seek minor charges. Its clear, the law enforcement involved, were not privy to the letter of law, which should also fall to the SA office. If The SA office is not capable of coordinating and effectively communicating in a case like this, its likely that is an issue that needs to be looked into internally as well as externally.

This SA won the election, but more folks ultimately voted agaist him, than for him. This needs to hit home, and see some changes in this office take shape. There really is no defendable excuse for a multi term office holder, to be this off the mark continually. Coordination with law enforcement needs to be getting some of the constant prosecution and trial issues resolved. Between this, and the sleepwalking home invasion case, this office needs shaken up, and proper focus given to its weaknesses. The revolving door, can be altered, and the law still upheld. This office is a sitting duck, for qualified council to handily hand them their hats, even in caught red handed cases. That needs to change, long before this SA oversteps law enforcement, and takes on cold cases on his own.

Until he has his own house more in order, and has law enforcement directly involved in them all understanding the law and its prosecution, these dismal results of prosecution, being seen as a victory, is ultimately a loss when it comes to justice.

Perhaps in the next election cycle, his party should seek a competitor or replacement, if some progress to changing his offices issues is not undertaken notably. "

85CHSGrad wrote on Jan 10, 2009 2:50 PM:

" You are so correct Mike P. "

Harry Potter wrote on Jan 10, 2009 3:28 PM:

" Rotty wrote on Jan 10, 2009 10:25 AM:

" This guy should have locked up in a barn with a dozen undersexed bulls. "

Hey Rotty, don't you mean oversexed?

Not having a lot of knowledge of the bovine libido, I'm not sure if I get your comment, my friend. lol! "

cd wrote on Jan 10, 2009 5:23 PM:

" At least make Rose serve HIS sentence in the same manner as his horses did without doing anything wrong other than being owned by Rose. "

cd wrote on Jan 10, 2009 5:26 PM:

" Harry and Rotty,
Plenty of deprived, oversexed anything; bulls, horses, wolverines, coyotes, you name it.

Sounds like a darn good plan to me. "

Rotty wrote on Jan 10, 2009 5:44 PM:

" That would have probably been better, HP.
I was in a bit of a rush.
LOL! "

midright wrote on Jan 10, 2009 6:05 PM:

" Wow! Wars, famine, etc., etc. In the whole scheme of things--in the world--the fact that someone mistreated an animal does not rate real high on my list. Me thinks you all should find higher priority windmills to attack. Animal abuse is a bad, bad thing but everyone, from the government, the newspapers, to commentators here are blowing it way out of proportion. "

Mike P wrote on Jan 11, 2009 12:34 PM:

" This was the statute at the time, I believe. Possibly has been updated last year, but that would not apply to this case as it was already in motion.

(Animals Humane Care for Animals Act) 510 ILCS 70/3 Owner's duties

Summary: Requires owners to provide sufficient good quality wholesome food and water, adequate shelter, vet care to prevent suffering, and humane care/treatment.

Penalty: (510 ILCS 70/16) Class B Misdemeanor, maximum six months' confinement; $200 fine. 2nd or subsequent: Class 4 Felony. Department may enjoin continuous violations. Court may also order psych. evaluation and treatment at offender's expense. Court also may order forfeiture of all animals that are the basis of conviction, and court may order that offender and co-conspirators who live in same household as offender (or who knew/should have known of abuse) may not own or harbor any animals for a reasonable time. Mandatory psych. counseling for juveniles or companion animal hoarders.
---
(Animals Humane Care for Animals Act) 510 ILCS 70/16.1 Defenses

Summary: It is not a defense to violations of the Humane Care for Animals Act for the offender to assert that he/she had rights of ownership in the animal that was the victim.
---

This case was a failure of the department of agriculture, and local law enforcement to understand and effectively uphold the laws that are on the books. That still should ultimately fall on the SA office, for not effectively coordinating with law enforcement, to have clear understanding of the law and its prosecution, completely understood.

This went on for years, multiple groups failed these animals, and the SA office, failed to prosecute this to the fullest extent of the law. This person is a doctor, and treats animals this way, probably says something about his general thought processes. If he were my doctor, he wouldn't be any more.

Two years of not owning animals, seems like a low figure of the reasonable ammount of time, considering a patern existed for as long as it did, it likely should have been set at at least the known ammount of time issues were found prevalent. The number of animals, at least should have seen it placed at 5 or 10 years, and considered beyond reasonable. "

Mike P wrote on Jan 11, 2009 1:03 PM:

" Just the violations of the Dead Animal Disposal Act, should have brought stiffer penalties, than this verdict and sentencing produced. It is capable of being calculated as a class C misdemeanor, for each day, per dead animal.

I am not a lawyer, and I can find some of the laws handily in a simple search, its not like this stuff is burried in mountains of volumes of books any more. "

medic57 wrote on Jan 11, 2009 1:52 PM:

" midright

The same people who mistreat animals, will 99% of the time also mistreat people. "

cedric66 wrote on Jan 11, 2009 3:18 PM:

" rotty is just showing his ignorance with every post he makes. Never ceases to amaze me with his remarks. Time for him to go back to school!!! "

mindboggle wrote on Jan 11, 2009 3:22 PM:

" 10 days in jail AND $20,000 in fines AND reimbursement for the care of the horses.

Poor horses, it's a good thing the agenicies involved stepped in. I'm not sure what Rose's financial status is, but I think 10 days is enough considering the fine involved. "

Harry Potter wrote on Jan 11, 2009 4:51 PM:

" rotty is just showing his ignorance with every post he makes. Never ceases to amaze me with his remarks. Time for him to go back to school!!! "

Hey Rotty, looks like you have a fan club too. lol! "

Rotty wrote on Jan 11, 2009 6:40 PM:

" LOL @ HP!!
It sure looks like it, my friend.
He's probably another one of them Mayberry descendants.
[wink wink]
LOL!

Hey, cedric66, I atleast got you to give the JG-TC some of your business.
You may thank me later.
LOL!

Relax, seedy, I'm going to give you, & all of my adoring fans, a breather.
I'm taking the next couple of weeks off.

I'll see you all again towards the end of the month, so, cedric, have my welcome back ceremonies in order, OK?

And just to show you what a good guy I am, cedric gets to wear the Monitor Of The Day button, tomorrow.

Again, you can thank me later.
Now, get going & start planning my return party!
LOL!

Take Care Gang,
~Rotty "

Knowitall wrote on Jan 12, 2009 7:30 AM:

" What a golden opportunity Bush missed. He could have stood on the deck of the new Aircraft Carrier,named after his Dad, and decleared " Mission Acomplished". "

julio wrote on Jan 12, 2009 5:57 PM:

" The question remains. What was he doing with those horses? And.... Why does he want them back? "

cd wrote on Jan 12, 2009 9:26 PM:

" Knowitall wrote on Jan 12, 2009 7:30 AM:

" What a golden opportunity Bush missed. He could have stood on the deck of the new Aircraft Carrier,named after his Dad, and decleared " Mission Acomplished". "
-------

What the heck does that have to do with the topic at hand?!!

Are you constipated? "