Connecticut: Trial set for animal cruelty case against drug dealers and animal abusers Tara Bryson and Michael Hearl

CONNECTICUT --  A Feb. 24 trial date was set Tuesday in the animal cruelty cases of Tara Bryson and Michael Hearl after pretrial discussions failed for the last time to resolve the matter with a plea agreement instead of a six-member jury.

Hearl and Bryson — no longer the couple they were when they tended goats in 2014 at Butterfield Farm in Cornwall — both have rejected plea agreements that included prison time.

 

They claim they are innocent of allegations that they failed to adequately care for the dairy goats, dozens of which died or had to be euthanized after the state Department of Agriculture stepped in to seize them in January 2015.

Supervisory Assistant State's Attorney Devin T. Stilson, who will prosecute the case, said a meeting on Tuesday involving defense attorneys and Judge Charles D. Gill in chambers at Bantam Superior Court made it clear the case will go to trial.

Bryson's Winsted attorney, Robert F. Dwyer, has asked that the defendants be tried separately.

"We are preparing for trial," Dwyer said in a statement.

Stilson said he will attempt to join the cases.

Dwyer said the herd of about 100 animals suffered from a parasitic worm and weren't being mistreated or underfed. He said his client is adamant that she is innocent.

The goats rescued from animal abusers Hearl and Bryson

The goats were housed in a rented barn at Hautboy Hill Farm in Cornwall.

Hearl, 44, and Bryson, 41, of West Suffield, are accused by state and local animal control officers of repeatedly resisting efforts to force them to provide veterinary care, food and water beginning in late fall 2014 with a brutal winter bearing down. The state documented repeated failures to remedy a situation that grew worse by December.

 

The state, ruling the animals were malnourished and dying, finally seized 74 surviving animals last January.

In 2010, they were charged with numerous drug charges.

Bryson was charged with possession of marijuana, cultivation of marijuana and conspiracy to cultivate marijuana, while her live-in boyfriend got seven felonies, including “possession of a silencer for firearms and operating a drug factory (which basically means 'a complex marijuana cultivation operation capable of producing a marijuana crop year round').”

Hearl said they did have a home business–goat farming. Last year Bryson registered the property with the Connecticut Farm Bureau as Butterfield Farms — named after the street she lives on. The site, promotthegoat.com, says Bryson and Hearl are striving to become a local supplier of goat product including cheese, milk and yogurt.

Why does a woman living in a MILLION DOLLAR HOME need
the state to give her $50,000 in taxpayer money to start a business?
Clearly she has her own money and her business is CRIME!

Bryson received a $49,999 grant from the state to help get the farm going. Hearl told Forbes the business isn’t off the ground yet and they don’t have a license to sell goat products. But they encourage visitors to stop by their five-acre lot and visit the goats. The arrest report says they have surveillance equipment on the property.

Their guns and ammunition (22 cal. rifle, 20 gauge shotgun, 22 cal browning handgun, two 9 mm handguns, handcuffs and about 200 rounds of ammunition) were seized.

(Republican American - January 13, 2016)

Earlier:

• Connecticut: Tara Bryson and Michael Hearl are drug dealers (and animal abusers!)
• Connecticut: Tara Bryson, 40, and Michael Hearl, 43, who run a goat milk business left their animals to starve to death
• Connecticut: Dozens of goats found to be sick, drug dealers Tara Bryson, 40, and Michael Hearl, 43, arrested for animal cruelty