McLennan County Court-at-Law Judge Brad Cates sentenced Melanie Barrier to deferred probation for 24 months after the 56-year-old disabled woman pleaded guilty to 10 counts of animal cruelty.
That sentence will run concurrently with the 5 years of deferred felony probation to which 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother sentenced Barrier on Monday.
Barrier pleaded guilty in August in Strother’s court to two counts of child endangerment. Strother also ordered that Barrier could not be in possession of more than the three dogs she currently has.
In deferred probation cases, there is no final judgment of guilt on defendants’ records if they complete probation.
Basically all she has to do is NOT get charged with a misdemeanor or felony while on probation and when her probation ends (five years), it will be like all of this never happened. If she does not get counseling that focuses on her hoarding issues, she'll go back to hoarding. Except this time, she'll be sneakier about it - like getting a house out in the country and putting a gate across her driveway to prevent people from getting close to the house.
Before sentencing, Barrier’s attorney, Rob Swanton, told Cates that Barrier suffers from “severe, chronic depression” and the effects of her condition resulted in her not taking care of her two daughters and her home. He said the vast majority of dogs removed from her home were healthy. The ones that were not resulted in the animal cruelty charges to which she pleaded guilty, Swanton said.
Swanton said Barrier is working with Child Protective Services workers and 74th State District Judge Gary Coley Jr. toward the goal of reuniting with her daughters, whom Barrier adopted from China when they were much younger. They remain in foster care.
“Mrs. Barrier has taken very serious steps to deal with her depression and is doing everything the courts have asked her to do, which I believe has resulted in the offers of deferred probation so she can get through these events in her life without convictions on her record,” Swanton said. “I have full faith she will do everything she needs to do to complete the terms and conditions of her probation.”
Barrier’s daughters, who were 12 and 14 at the time, were removed from her home in February after officers discovered her and the girls living in filthy conditions with 56 dogs.
Officials at the time called Barrier a “dog hoarder” and said they thought she was trying to run a dog shelter in her small duplex in the 800 block of Parkview Circle.
All but four of the 56 dogs seized from Barrier’s home were ordered forfeited by Justice of the Peace W.H. “Pete” Peterson.
The judge also ordered Barrier to pay almost $8,500 to the Waco Animal Shelter for feeding and caring for the dogs.
CPS officials said in court documents the girls were living in a home filled with dog feces and urine and suffered dog bites trying to break up fights among the animals.
One of the girls told a CPS caseworker that she could not walk in the home without almost stepping on dog feces.
The CPS specialist said “the smell of dog urine and feces was horrific” even outside the home. One of the girls said she slept on a top bunk, and her sister slept on the bottom, where there were “always dogs and the bed is always dirty,” according to court records filed in the case.
The animal cruelty charges are related to the condition of the home and for each animal that was malnourished.
Some of the animals were stacked in cages on top of each other, where they relieved themselves on each other, Hewitt Police Chief Jim Devlin said in February.
(Waco Tribune - Oct 15, 2015)
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