# Injustice in pennsylvania



## Edward Egan (Mar 4, 2009)

Please note this is forwarded. It was written by Lisa Warren, who has given permission for distribution. It's a fascinating and chilling review of the "abuse" case in PA involving AKC judges/Bichon breeders Mimi Winkler and Jim Deppen.(news stories at 
http://articles.mcall.com/2010-06-2...100625_1_dog-wardens-animal-cruelty-dead-dogs
http://articles.mcall.com/2010-06-2...100625_1_dog-wardens-animal-cruelty-dead-dogs 

and 

[URL]http://articles.mcall.com/2010-09-29/news/mc-mimi-winkler-animal-cruelty-ruling20100929_1_ironwood-kennels-miriam-mimi-winkler-james-r-deppen[/URL]

INJUSTICE IN PENNSYLVANIA
Lisa Warren

After nearly fourteen months of hell for Pack Master Wendy Willard, the Pennsylvania Murder Hollow Basset Hound trial finished on October 9th, 2010, when all 22 counts of animal cruelty were withdrawn. To anyone following that case and the one involving Pennsylvania kennel owners Mimi Winkler and Jim Deppen, the similarities are striking. 

In both instances, there were over twenty charges of animal cruelty, a number suspiciously close to the actual number of dogs in each kennel, implying that every single dog in each kennel was being abused. In both cases, animal control officers trespassed onto the kennel properties, and in both cases defendants testified that the officers employed coercion, intimidation and threats to assure the surrender of dogs. The confiscated dogs in each case were delivered to rescue organizations and re-homed long before any charges were filed, effectively denying the defense any access to the evidence. 

In both cases, months passed between the day the dogs were taken and the date the charges were filed. And in each case, a dog died as a result of the actions taken by the officers. (In the Winkler and Deppen case, it was reported by the news that multiple dead dogs were found on the property. In actuality, there was only one dead dog, a dog that was not "found" by the wardens but was presented to them as proof of the result of their alleged negligence in not re-securing gates during their trespass.)

In both cases, numerous, similar kennel violations were charged and subsequently withdrawn. At the Winkler-Deppen hearing, the prosecution presented a photograph depicting poor kennel conditions that two witnesses, both intimately familiar with the kennel facility, testified could not have been taken at that kennel. There were charges of unsanitary conditions as frivolous as dust on a ceiling fan and chewed edges on plastic crates. (No dogs were living in crates in that kennel, but crates were used as beds in some runs.) Mid-point in the proceedings the prosecutor saw fit to withdraw all eighteen charges pertaining to the facility and unsanitary conditions.

In each case, photographs depicting dogs with exposed haws, normal in both Basset hounds and Neapolitan Mastiffs, were submitted as evidence of dogs needing veterinary care for cherry eye, demonstrating either ignorance or an intention to misrepresent evidence on the part of the animal control officers. And in the Winkler-Deppen case, it is my opinion that the prosecution also failed to prove that other photos and video footage used as evidence actually depicted their allegedly abused dogs; in fact, the defense vigorously denied ownership of most of them. Not only were they not known to the defendant, but the microchip numbers the state attributed to those dogs could not have possibly been the chips scanned: one was the chip number for a dog that was not confiscated, and another was a microchip number that was never assigned to any dog owned by either of the defendants according to their own records and the records of both Home Again and CAR. One is left wondering where and how the prosecution got the numbers they arbitrarily assigned to those dogs and what their motivation was in doing so.

Were some of the defendant's confiscated dogs in need of a bath? They tell me yes. They were white dogs that had been in a kennel with gravel runs during a very rainy month of April and they were due to be bathed. (Seven of them were adult dogs of Winkler's breeding that had recently been returned to her for reasons that varied from a move to a nursing home to the dog's not matching the former owner's new décor.) Were some of them matted? Again, yes, but Bichon coats can mat almost overnight, and it is notable that there were no charges of eczema, skin lesions, fleas or ticks, or any of the conditions that the prosecution's witnesses from various rescue organizations, (at least one of which is believed to be funded by PETA and HSUS,) kept saying could develop from matted coats. Also absent were any charges of physical abuse, inadequate housing, malnourishment, internal parasites, dirty ears, dirty teeth or myriad other problems that would have developed if the dogs had, in truth, been neglected. And one of the dog wardens actually testified to the outgoing personalities of the dogs that were taken. 

I am not familiar with all of the details of the Murder Hollow case, but I am friendly with Mimi Winkler and Jim Deppen and was present at all three days of their hearings. I heard evidence of falsified evidence and an attempt at witness intimidation. I heard several contradictions in statements made by the dog wardens and heard testimony regarding their admitted trespass onto the property that, as the former owner of the kennel, I personally knew could not be true. And I heard the magistrate, an elected official who is neither lawyer nor judge, remark that he had never heard a case anything like this one, being accustomed to twenty-minute small-claims court proceedings. That admission was delivered immediately before he issued a judgment that was completely counter to a provision of the Pennsylvania Dog Law that had been highlighted in closing arguments. 

From an initial charge of 22 counts of animal cruelty, the magistrate found the defendants guilty on four counts. One count was for a Border Collie in bad condition that had recently been dumped there or had strayed onto the property, a dog for which the statute clearly exempts the defendants from any duty of care. (The defendants were feeding and housing the dog temporarily, deciding what to do with a dog with obvious neurological problems.) The other three counts were for Bichons. Why only three of the 18 that were seized, and which three? It seemed an arbitrary number since no reason was specified. Winkler was also found guilty of lying to the dog wardens, something she denies and the evidence seems to belie, and both defendants were convicted of failure to have a kennel license, an uncontested charge. To several observers that day it seemed that the magistrate, in spite of the evidence and in the face of overwhelming reasonable doubt, felt compelled to issue a finding that favored the prosecution, but chose to do so in a way that left very wide avenues open for the pending appeal. 

Something I do not know about the Murder Hollow case is whether or not purported friends of Wendy Willard chose to find her guilty before knowing the whole story, but I have been stunned by the unreserved judgment and sheer schadenfreude of some dog people toward Mimi Winkler and Jim Deppen, who naturally perceived those pre-judgments as betrayals by people who might have been expected to realize that, in this day of involvement of animal-rights activists in state and local government, this kind of thing can happen to anyone with multiple dogs: insignificant situations can be blown up, lumped together with totally unfounded charges and used to indict a dog owner, all in the pursuit of the animal rights agenda. The fact is that very few of us can afford to think, "It couldn't happen to me." 

A kennel raid would unnerve even the steadiest among us and, in more than one Pennsylvania case, it seems the state employees sensed the time when a kennel owner was most vulnerable and least likely to invoke the rights granted by the law. On the very morning her dogs were confiscated, Mimi Winker had learned that her son had cancer. She was in tears as she tended to the dogs and was understandably unable to summon the presence of mind needed to effectively stand up to three opportunistic Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture dog wardens who, she testfied, threatened her with incarceration and coerced her to sign over her dogs, all because the dogs were having, in the words of the defense attorney, " a bad hair day." A former Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ("PSPCA") humane officer has said, "We were told to tell them "In lieu of charges, surrender your animals," exactly the approach that was used that morning in Winkler's kennel. She succumbed, yet two months later Winkler and Deppen were charged with animal cruelty counts that included all of the dogs that were taken.

Winkler was told that day that she had 72 hours (guaranteed by statute) to have the Neapolitan with the alleged cherry eye treated, but she testified that she was not informed of her same right concerning the Bichons, none of which were in immediate need of anything more than grooming. Why were the Bichons, a breed that the officers told Mimi Winkler would be easily placed in good homes, summarily taken? Former PSPCA humane officers told a Pennsylvania newspaper, the "Pocono Record," that officers had a quota of confiscated animals to fill and that annual bonuses were dependent on satisfied quotas. The dog wardens on this case are employees of a different Pennsylvania state entity but the two entities work together in some cases, (Murder Hollow was one,) and it is difficult to put the possibility of monetary considerations on the part of the officers completely out of mind. 

This would be a nightmare for anyone. Winkler and Deppen report that they suffered threats and repeated intimidation by authorities, the loss of beloved dogs that were taken and never recovered, the death of a cherished dog at the careless hands of dog wardens, the charges appearing in the news and online weeks before receiving official notification, a world-renowned breeding program seriously curtailed, reputations severely damaged, attacks and abandonment by people thought to be friends, lies circulating on the Internet, health problems resulting from the extended periods of stress and, finally, a conviction in spite of what many courtroom observers felt was a lack of substantiated evidence and in the face of testimony that the authorities had behaved with audacious overreach.

People don't believe something so blatantly unjust will ever happen to them. But everyone with dogs needs to be very aware of their state and local laws, should have a strong knowledge of all legal rights, and should be prepared to react appropriately if officers attempt to trespass, confiscate animals or bring unfounded charges. Like an emergency evacuation plan, a plan of action to employ if the authorities try to confiscate dogs is something to prepare and know by heart, hoping all the while that it will never be used. 
Also, months later it might be difficult to recall exactly what happened during those hours of extreme stress or to prove it should the prosecution falsify evidence, so it is important to document everything pertaining to a raid with photographs or video and a written timeline of what happened. The authorities in every state should be obligated to provide the accused with copies of all paperwork pertaining to the case, so an accused dog owner should remember to insist on that. In both Pennsylvania cases, the defense maintained that officers did not provide copies of documents the accused parties were entitled to, documents that the defense might have effectively use later.

There is much, much more to the Winkler-Deppen case than can be covered here, enough for a good writer to turn into a novel replete with conspiracies, political agendas, sexual harassment, witness intimidation, repeated rogue actions by policing authorities, and dramatic events in the courthouse hallways and parking lot as well as in the courtroom. Given the other similarities, it would not surprise me if the same held true regarding the Murder Hollow trial. 

(It is of interest that there is a third Pennsylvania case with charges and circumstances not unlike those in the cases cited here. That kennel owner has sued the state for $10,000,000 in damages. Yet another case with similar charges was dismissed, one that involved the same primary Dog Warden as the Winkler-Deppen case.)

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## Edward Egan (Mar 4, 2009)

If these accounts are true, something stinks with PA DOA, and it isn't dog poop.


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