District attorney, humane society reorganize attack plan for cruelty

With recent training and funding, that attitude is shifting in San Mateo County.

A hefty sea change occurred when the District Attorney's Office appointed a specific prosecutor to primarily handle animal cases. For years, as in many agencies throughout the state and nation, animal abuse and cruelty cases were passed on to whoever was handy or had an open slot. Often they were pushed to the wayside or never prosecuted. When they did make it to court, charges were typically dropped or modified.

"It is often seen as not a high enough priority and with animals it is hard to prove intent to make it a felony instead of a misdemeanor," said Ken White, president of the Peninsula Humane Society.

In response, White said, "PHS put a little bite into its bark by finding money three years ago for cruelty investigations."

Beginning July 1, one PHS investigator was assigned full-time to animal cruelty and White is currently recruiting another. Ideally, he would like to find $200,000 annually through donations to dedicate three investigators. The whole of cruelty investigation work is born by PHS and not the county. The PHS holds the county's animal control contract.

All four staff veterinarians who perform necropsies - animal autopsies - are also ready to testify in court when needed.

The agency takes blood and tissue samples, conducts forensic work and investigates much as a police officer would.

"The society hired a retired prosecutor to work with its staff to write reports and collect evidence in a way that is useful to the District Attorney's Office," White said.

"We need to know what works from the DA's side. If they can prosecute murder and rape they need to now how to handle this stuff, too," White said.

Knowing what evidence is needed and how to present it was once a huge barrier to bring a case to trial, said Elizabeth Raffaelli, prosecutor for the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office.

Raffaelli was the first prosecutor specifically assigned to handle animal cases and is impressed with White's commitment to revamping how cruelty and neglect are handled.

"They are very serious at PHS about prosecuting which is wonderful but their investigators are just not trained normally to put it into any form that can come into a criminal court. What humane officer in the normal course of business is going to write a search warrant?" Raffaelli said.

Search warrants were key to a trio of cock fighting cases along the coast. Similarly, humane officers needed the documents to investigate a Menlo Park man, Robert Hollywood, accused of hoarding hundreds of rats and mice in his home.

White said the commitment of one prosecutor to act as a liaison with PHS and handle cases is "very unusual" but resulted in the District Attorney's Office accepting rather than denying most of its reports.

In 2004, PHS fielded 662 cruelty complaints. Some do not bear much merit and a substantial number are solved outside the court system, White said. Still, he calls the statistics "startlingly high" for cruelty.

"Often, the calls are from people who aren't sure if what they are seeing is real or even a problem," White said.

Cases that never make the headlines are separating couples who use the animals as revenge, he said. For instance, a perfectly healthy animal loved by one member might be brought in by another to be euthanized.

"It really is horrible and it's cruel but it's harder to prove," White said.

Community awareness of animal cases has increased dramatically but also so have the number of trial-worthy incidents, said Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

He estimates the total cases as "somewhere in the double digits" in any given year and said most are now processed by prosecutors.

White believes the total isn't up but that more cases involve outright cruelty rather than neglect.

"My gut feeling is that the numbers are not increasing but what is are the real ugly, creative, egregious things people do," White said.

"Those premeditated, bizarre or malevolent stories overshadow the more mundane animal cases," he said.

Since the beginning of 2005 alone, the following animal tales have engendered shock and publicity:

· In February, a 47-year-old San Mateo man pleaded no contest to misdemeanor animal neglect after Jou-Jou, a neighbor's cat, was found hanging from his necktie on the owner's fence. Prosecutor Joe Cannon couldn't prove that the 10-year-old domestic black cat had not accidentally hung herself while approaching a favorite scratching post. Karl Schappert, the defendant, admitted using a tie to pull the cat from behind his television after it wandered into his home. He claimed the cat fled before he could remove the tie. Schappert was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and a $100 restitution fine.

· On March 29, Redwood City resident Mark Muerjal allegedly hacked up his pet mastiff, Titan, with an ax after the dog bit his girlfriend in the head during a heated argument. He is charged with felony animal cruelty and faces up to three years in prison.

· Mango, a Brazilian parrot, was de-feathered May 2 when the 3-year-old bird reportedly tried defending its owner during a drunken assault in Moss Beach. The defendant, Grady Powless, 48, has pleaded not guilty to numerous felonies stemming from the attack on two men as well as one felony count of animal cruelty against Mango.

· Robert Kelly, 62, is facing five felony charges, including animal cruelty, after allegedly beating a stray cat to death with a nine-iron golf club in his front yard. Kelly suffers from Alzheimer's disease, which his family said may have provoked the May 17 attack. He is currently under the care of mental health while awaiting trial

· Joshua Allen Emert, 30, is accused of strangling his grandmother's terrier, Benji, with a wire coat hanger before bludgeoning the animal and burying it in a shallow grave. The dog had been missing since June 9 and sheriff's deputies discovered the remains a week later while investigating other charges against Emert.

While most of those cases are pending, White is optimistic about the outcome.

"In talking to the public I always say I understand their passion about animals and share it but the law doesn't always give us those tools [to prosecute]. Finally, we are figuring out how to do that," he said.

"Part of the difficulty is that the statutes governing animal abuse are awkwardly worded, making awareness of conditions or intent to harm more tricky to prove," Raffaelli said.

She is still stinging over one dog neglect case in which an owner was acquitted of leaving his animal with an open wound filled with maggots. Jurors told her afterward that she was too good at proving the defendant never paid attention to his pet. They couldn't believe he was even aware of his sickly state.

"My worry is that I have to present this mute animal to the jury and persuade them that this is a creature worth protecting. The question is will they worry about an animal?," Raffaelli said.

Raffaelli moved on to other cases but one of her last dealt with a Burlingame man accused of beating his girlfriend and tossing her puppy against a car window. Similar incidents of animal abuse peppered the domestic violence cases Raffaelli later handled. Sometimes the abuser takes his aggression out on the animals as well as the humans in a household. Sometimes the defendant will torture, kill or leave a beloved pet to exert dominance over a victim.

"The ideal is to step away from whether the victim is human or animal and take a global look at the violent mindset behind the violence," she said.

Criminal and psychology experts now know that sociopaths usually have a childhood marked by a triad of traits: animal abuse, bedwetting and firestarting. Somebody able to injure or harm an animal in a premeditated or aggressive manner could also be liable to turn that fury on another human being.

Police officers and other law enforcement officials are becoming more attune to the connection, resulting in more animal abuse being turned over to the district attorney.

Aside from budding serial killers and domestic violence offenders, animal abuse resulting from neglect is just as horrific, according to animal proponents like White.

The increase of hair-raising cases may not be a sign of a growing generation of sociopaths but could indicate a serious direction in which the community is headed.

"In an advanced and enlightened society, it is how we treat the least of our creatures, those that can't defend themselves, that really defines our society," Raffaelli said.

Michelle Durand can be reached by e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 104. What do you think of this story? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.