Trenton Alan Neal, 22, pleaded guilty to the charges in the four unrelated cases, which 11th Judicial Circuit Solicitor Donnie Myers said he lumped together to present to the judge during the sentencing June 22.
Court records show Neal was sentenced to 90 days in prison for ill treatment and torture of animals from the March 2014 case, in which five of his horses were found emaciated and injured; three years in prison for the fatal beating of his girlfriend’s dog in November 2014; and five years on probation for a grand larceny charge from August 2014. A fourth case of ill treatment and torture of animals, stemming from Neal’s Dec. 19 arrest after 19 horses, one mule and one donkey were found emaciated at his residence, is recorded in the court docket as dismissed, but Myers said the facts of that case were presented to the judge for consideration at sentencing.
“It was one continuous series of acts and all of that was presented to the judge,” Myers said Thursday. “This is the only case that I know of, or have been told about, where you have somebody that doesn’t have a prior criminal record who got three years for animal abuse.”
Joe Mann, owner of Big Oaks Rescue Farm in Greenwood, S.C., which took in the 21 animals confiscated from Neal in December, said he wishes Neal had received additional time for that specific case because of the severity of the abuse.
The McCormick County Sheriff’s Office and McCormick Police Department found a dead goat, two dead donkeys, a dead colt and two horses dead and decaying, along with the 19 emaciated horses, mule and donkey Dec. 19 while executing a search warrant at Neal’s property.
McCormick County Sheriff Chief Deputy C.E. Gable told The Augusta Chronicle in January that Neal was suspected of being involved in kill buying, a legal but debated business in which buyers purchase animals at auctions to later sell to slaughterhouses in Mexico. In court documents, Neal listed his employer as the Saluda Livestock Market.
Mann said animals experience abuse and neglect while waiting at buyers’ farms before being transported to slaughter, and stiffer sentences would be one way to punish offenders and discourage abuses.
“For him not getting punished for what he did to those horses and those donkeys and those goats, that’s a crime in itself,” Mann said Thursday. “The judicial system is guilty of a crime. It will never get any better as long as nobody gets punished.”
The South Carolina animal cruelty statute was revised last year to provide harsher penalties and fines for offenders, but animal welfare advocates say it is still one of the weakest laws in the country.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund ranked South Carolina 45 out of 56 U.S. states and territories in 2014 for animal protection laws.
A first offense conviction of animal cruelty in South Carolina now carries 90 days in jail compared to the previous 60 days, and fines for second and third offenses have been raised, but advocates say none of that matters if offenders are not convicted in the first place.
Wayne Brennessel, executive director of the Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said the South Carolina law does not define cruelty and torture well enough, and nothing prevents offenders from owning animals in the future.
There is also a record of failure to prosecute even well-documented abuse cases, he said.
“We still have somewhat of a culture of an agrarian state that animals are property,” Brennessel said. “The law is weak, but it’s our state’s reluctance toward enforcing those laws.” A Laurens County animal cruelty case also involving animals allegedly bought by a kill buyer for slaughter is currently pending.
Justin White, 25, was arrested Jan. 3 and charged with five counts of felony ill treatment of animals and torture after authorities found three emaciated horses and one donkey in his care, along with 25 horse carcasses.
The property owner told authorities White, her daughter’s boyfriend, bought horses at auctions and would keep them at her property before selling them for slaughter.
Warren Mowry, deputy solicitor for the Eighth Judicial Circuit, said White was indicted on the charges April 10, but the case has not yet been placed on the General Sessions calendar.
(Augusta Chronicle - July 9, 2015)
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