Mt. Pleasant farmer guilty of neglect, improper burial in calf deaths

MICHIGAN -- Jurors have found a Mt. Pleasant farmer guilty of providing inadequate care leading to the deaths of 72 calves and of improperly burying them.

Four days of testimony in Isabella Trial Court were capped Thursday afternoon by a quick verdict after 45 minutes of jury deliberation.

Attorneys had alternately painted John W. Montross as either a struggling farmer buying marginal animals who was dealt a whammy by a harsh winter, or a poor producer providing inadequate care who left dead animals lying where they fell or in piles around his farm.

Montross faces a Nov. 12 sentencing before Judge Mark Duthie on one count of neglecting 10 or more animals, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison; and one count of improper burial of animals, a 90-day misdemeanor.

Isabella County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Robert Holmes addresses
the jury on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, during closing arguments in the jury
trial for John William Montross, who faces animal abuse
and insurance fraud charges.
HOLLY MAHAFFEY - THE MORNING SUN

A separate trial on two other felonies, including insurance fraud for reporting some of the dead calves as stolen, is on hold while his defense attorney pursues an attempt to suppress evidence gathered on his farm.

Representing Montross, attorney Keeley Heath had admitted her client broke state law in failing to properly bury the dead calves, but implored jurors in closing arguments to find him innocent of the more serious neglect charge.

Heath claimed that Montross bought marginal and sickly animals at the Rosebush Sale Barn, often paying as little as $5 for a calf. His purchases over the six months in question - from November 2013 to this past April - averaged just over $17 each, compared to more common prices between $160 and $180.

“They should not be sold,” she said of the newborn calves Montross bought. “These are weak animals. They should be euthanized. They should not be sold, but the reality is they were sold.”

Heath said Montross gambled on marginal animals hoping to nurse them to sale weights as dairy heifers or steers and turn healthy profits.

“We’re getting into this moral dilemma that we have 93 animals in this condition, and we have to ask if we would be better off with 93 dead calves?” Heath asked. “Or are we better off trying to save some?”

John William Montross, on trial for animal abuse and insurance fraud
charges, sit beside his attorney Keeley Heath while listening to Isabella
County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Robert Holmes address the
 jury on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014.
HOLLY MAHAFFEY - THE MORNING SUN

But Chief Assistant Prosecutor Robert Holmes called veterinarians, police officers, animal control officers and others to testify that a mortality rate of 76 percent among the animals in question, compared to an industry expectation of 25 percent maximum for calves during a harsh winter, pointed to obvious neglect.

“The law doesn’t say give it your best shot,” Holmes said. “The law says if you buy these animals, you have to provide them adequate care, and Mr. Montross is blaming others for his predicament.”

In closing arguments. Holmes said all prosecution witnesses described conditions on the farm – including inadequate bedding soaked with urine and manure – during the months in question, but that none of the defense witnesses saw any of the live or dead animals until afterward.

“If you buy weak animals that need extra care, you still have to provide extra care for them,” Holmes said. “If you have a hospital without an intensive care unit, you don’t take patients that need intensive care.”

Holmes repeatedly said that improper care – including lack of necessary shelter, food, water, exercise and medical care – led to the deaths of 72 of the nearly 100 young calves Montross bought at an Isabella County auction barn between November 2013 and this past April.

“We know these animals were bought in a compromised state and needed extra care and attention,” Holmes said. “But animals have a right under the law to be raised in sanitary conditions, and Mr. Montross chose to ignore that.”

Authorities went to the farm Montross rented on West Remus Road (M-20) west of Mt. Pleasant on April 9 after the landowner discovered piles of dead and rotting calves and said Montross ignored his demand to clean them up.

Initially charged with abandonment and improper burial stemming from the April investigation, Montross also faces felony charges for filing insurance claims reporting that several of the dead calves had been stolen.

Investigators found ear tags of cows reported stolen in the four piles of cow bones found on property Montross rented, along with an adjoining parcel.

In a separate trial, pending the evidence appeal by his attorney, Montross faces one count of insurance fraud and one count of falsely reporting a felony, both punishable by up to four years.

He is accused of filing a $12,250 claim paid by his insurer after telling police that thieves had taken several of his calves.

Those charges are on hold as Heath appeals Duthie’s decision last month allowing evidence from a search of his farm, and evidence gathered from a search warrant, to be admitted in court.

(The Daily Tribune - Oct 10, 2014)