On witness stand, Leachman says leg bands were 'never too tight'

MONTANA -- During the sixth day of his horse-abuse trial, Billings livestock breeder James Leachman testified Monday that the plastic leg bands he used to identify his horses were “never too tight.”

He said that more than 800 horses he raised on the Home Place ranch east of Billings were in the “best shape that 2010 summer that they had ever been. It was a great year.”



James Leachman testifies in his own defense Monday on
charges of misdemeanor animal cruelty toward five of his horses.

In January 2011, the Yellowstone County Attorney’s Office charged Leachman with five misdemeanor counts of abusing his horses. Four of the five were found dead or were humanely shot because the leg bands had crippled them. The fifth horse died of a broken leg that went untreated for months, prosecutors said.

Justice of the Peace Larry Herman admonished Leachman several times Monday morning to answer his attorney’s questions and stop giving lengthy responses.
 

Equine internal medicine specialist Jenifer Gold testifies
about a horse injury at James Leachman's horse abuse trial.

Leachman said his only problems with the leg bands, which were designed for dairy cattle, was that they would slip off. So, he started using two bands – one for each front leg.

He painted a picture of a ranch that was well run, with horses carefully sorted until his neighbor, Turk Stovall, created “anarchy” by opening gates, moving his horses to different pastures and mixing them up.



Top: A photo of a dead horse's legs with yellow ID bands
introduced as evidence during Jim Leachman's trial in Billings.

Stovall’s family bought the Home Place ranch at a sheriff’s foreclosure sale in the summer of 2010, but Leachman maintained he could continue grazing his horses there for another year while he was trying to raise money to buy back the land.

The foreclosure sale on his main ranch was to occur in the summer of 2009, but Leachman testified that he declared personal bankruptcy the day of the sale to stop the process and buy another year of time.

After being charged in the winter of 2011, Leachman testified that he had reached a deal that spring with the Crow Tribe. The tribe would buy back and eventually own the Home Place ranch, while letting Leachman use the land to graze his horses. The fines levied by the Bureau of Indian Affairs because his horses were trespassing on Crow land would be settled for $50,000.

But the BIA regional director wouldn’t vote for the plan because he was under political pressure to seize the horses and sell them at an auction, Leachman said.

Kenny Kukowski, of Stovall Ranches, looks over a dead horse
on Jan. 19, 2011. This horse had to be shot after it was
handicapped with a broken hoof and had been walking on the bone.

In March and April 2011, Crow cowboys rounded up hundreds of Leachman horses and the BIA sold them at an auction that attracted buyers from across the country and Canada.

Grazing his newborn horses on open range increased the odds of injury, he testified, but helped them learn from their mothers, made them better ranch horses and caused them less disease than horses confined in small spaces suffer.

“I can probably remember every injury a horse had that I own because it was so traumatic and there were so few of them,” he testified.

However, three veterinarians testified for the prosecution last week that the plastic bands around the lower legs of many of Leachman’s horses were so tight, they cut into the flesh and directly caused the death of four of the five horses he’s charged with abusing.

A mare and her foal that were among among about 350 or
450 horses fenced into a pasture with almost no grass on the
former Leachman Home Place ranch 16 miles east of Billings.

For four decades, Leachman ran a successful Montana cattle breeding operation called Leachman Cattle Co., before that business fell victim to debt and lawsuits. A decade ago, he started raising horses under the Hairpin Cavvy brand.

If convicted on all five counts, Leachman faces a maximum penalty of five years in jail and a $5,000 fine. His testimony is scheduled to continue Monday afternoon.

(billingsgazette.com - Dec 3, 2012)